More than 40 African American intellectuals are asking Smith College to end the “forced, accusatory ‘anti-bias’ training” that was mandated for campus service workers after a student falsely accused some workers of racially-profiling her.
The letter, obtained by National Review, was sent on Monday to Smith College president Kathleen McCartney by Bob Woodson, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and founder of “1776 Unites,” and 44 fellow black intellectuals. The signatories ask McCartney to “rethink how you have handled” the fallout over an alleged incident of racial profiling in the summer of 2018, and urge her to “publicly apologize” and “compensate” the school’s service workers that were caught up in the firestorm.
As detailed by the New York Times, a Smith student accused a janitor and a police officer of questioning “my being at Smith, and my existence overall as a woman of color” after the service workers asked her why she was eating lunch in a closed dormitory lounge. McCartney immediately sided with the student, who drew national attention and backing from the ACLU, as she held up the incident as an example of an oppressive campus environment.
“This painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias in which people of color are targeted while simply going about the business of their ordinary lives,” she wrote.
“We used to joke, don’t let a rich student report you, because if you do, you’re gone,” said Mark Patenaude, the janitor in question. After 21 years at Smith, he left his job at the school soon after being falsely accused.
Despite a subsequent investigation by an outside law firm revealing no persuasive evidence of bias, McCartney responded by arguing that “it is impossible to rule out the potential role of implicit racial bias,” and subsequently implemented mandatory anti-bias training for campus staff. The move has led to public blowback, including from a former staffer and Smith alum who recently resigned over the treatment.
The letter’s signatories — scholars Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, and Shelby Steele among them — express disgust at the way McCartney has handled the situation.
The letter also questions McCartney for a recent February letter she wrote to the Smith community, in which she stated that “our commitment to, and strategies for, advancing equity and inclusion are grounded in evidence.”
“Have you gathered any verifiable evidence of success from the ‘antibias’ training you forced your service employees to undergo as a condition of their employment?” the letter asks. “Please consider that many Black Americans find training that reduces us simply to a racial category profoundly condescending and dehumanizing.”
Loury and McWhorter recently announced that they are trying to establish a process to help people embroiled in legal situations brought on by their disagreement with critical race theory and anti-bias treatment.
Click here to read the letter in full.
I have worked at Smith College for 33 years; I am also an alumna. However, I now find myself ashamed of Smith for the way the incident of July 31st has been handled.
The administration was so intent on their outrage that they failed to ask important questions of staff that could have cleared this issue up immediately.
The student in question was, at the time, a College employee. She was supposed to eat her meals at her assigned dining area across campus but chose instead to eat lunch in a residential dining hall that was open for feeding students/summer programs. However, the house itself was closed on that day, July 31st and had been closed since the end of the academic year in May. The student decided to leave the dining hall and lie down on a couch in the dimly lit living room. The staff member accused of unfairly confronting her was not wearing their glasses – she/he could not tell for sure whether the person on the couch was male or female, as can be seen from the use of different pronouns in the transcript.
The accused staff member is perfectly aware that there are black students at the College; however, the staff person had no reason to think that the unknown person was a Smith student. When he/she said the person ‘seems to be out of place’, she/he was referring to the fact that the house was closed; this is made apparent when he/she says, ‘I don’t see anybody in the building at this point’. In other words, there were no folks coming in early for a summer program that the unknown person could have been a member of. Both President McCartney and Amy Hunter (Interim Director of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) seem fixated on the idea that the staff member thought this person was ‘out of place’ at Smith because she was black. This is ludicrous – the accused staff member has worked on campus and in student residences for over 30 years. Oumou Kanoute’s own actions put her ‘out of place’, not the color of her skin. This was never an incident of racial bias.
As staff, we are told that if there is a stranger in our area we are not to approach them; we should call Campus Police, which the accused staff member did. The call was made at 1:53 pm; lunch in the dining room was over at 1:30, so only staff should have been in the building at 1:53. The staff member leaves for the day at 3:00 and was responsible for securing the house. A dance program with many young children was scheduled to be housed in this dorm that weekend. She/he had no way of knowing if the person lying on the couch had come in off the street, or even if the person might have overdosed on drugs and needed help.
Amy Hunter writes that, ‘Smith College does not tolerate race- or gender-based discrimination in any form. Such behavior can contribute to a climate of fear, hostility and exclusion that has no place in our community.’ I must say that Smith staff are now living in such a climate. Staff now feel at a loss as to how to keep their areas safe – ‘See something, say something’ will no longer be practiced. At this point the lives of three dedicated staff members have been seriously disrupted, their jobs have been jeopardized, they have been labeled as racists and have had nasty comments and threats directed at them. Predictably, staff morale is at an all-time low.
A simple meeting between the student, the staff member, the responding member of Campus Police and a College representative could have solved this whole misunderstanding without the predictable social media circus and the associated histrionics. Why wasn’t such a meeting arranged immediately after the incident? Why did the College post inflammatory statements on the Smith website instead, essentially finding the staff member guilty before any investigating was done? The staff member has had a spotless work record for over three decades at Smith, handled the situation correctly and according to protocol, and has now been on leave for almost a month. How can this be considered fair and equitable?
Sincerely,
Tracey A. Putnam Culver, AC ’95
BA cum laude, PBK
McCartney’s behavior seems to be PROMOTING racism in my view. We are all deserving of respect and we are all innocent until proven guilty.