Where do America's most racist people live? "The rural Northeast and South," suggests a new study just published in PLOS ONE.
The
paper introduces a novel but
makes-tons-of-sense-when-you-think-about-it method for measuring the
incidence of racist attitudes: Google search data.
The methodology comes from data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.
He's used it before to measure the effect of racist attitudes on Barack Obama's electoral prospects.
"Google data, evidence suggests, are unlikely to suffer from major social censoring," Stephens-Davidowitz wrote in a previous paper. "Google searchers
are online and likely alone, both of which make it easier to express
socially taboo thoughts. Individuals, indeed, note that they are
unusually forthcoming with Google." He also notes that the Google
measure correlates strongly with other standard measures social science
researchers have used to study racist attitudes.
For
the PLOS ONE paper, researchers looked at searches containing the
N-word. People search frequently for it, roughly as often as searches
for "migraine(s)," "economist," "sweater," "Daily Show," and
"Lakers." (The authors attempted to control for variants of the N-word
not necessarily intended as pejoratives, excluding the "a" version of
the word that analysis revealed was often used "in different contexts
compared to searches of the term ending in '-er'.")
It's
also important to note that not all people searching for the N-word are
motivated by racism, and that not all racists search for that word,
either. But aggregated over several years and several million searches,
the data give a pretty good approximation of where a particular type of
racist attitude is the strongest.
Interestingly,
on the map above the most concentrated cluster of racist searches
happened not in the South, but rather along the spine of the
Appalachians running from Georgia all the way up to New York and
southern Vermont.
Other
hotbeds of racist searches appear in areas of the Gulf Coast,
Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and a large portion of Ohio. But
the searches get rarer the further West you go. West of Texas, no region
falls into the "much more than average" category. This map follows the
general contours of a map of racist Tweets made by researchers at Humboldt State University.
So
some people are sitting at home by themselves, Googling a bunch of
racist stuff. What does it matter? As it turns out, it matters quite a
bit. The researchers on the PLOS ONE paper found that racist searches
were correlated with higher mortality rates for blacks, even after
controlling for a variety of racial and socio-economic variables.
"Results
from our study indicate that living in an area characterized by a one
standard deviation greater proportion of racist Google searches is
associated with an 8.2% increase in the all-cause mortality rate among
Blacks," the authors conclude. Now, of course, Google searches aren't
directly leading to the deaths of African Americans. But previous
research has shown that the prevalence of racist attitudes can
contribute to poor health and economic outcomes among black residents.
"Racially
motivated experiences of discrimination impact health via diminished
socioeconomic attainment and by enforcing patterns in racial residential
segregation, geographically isolating large segments of the Black
population into worse neighborhood conditions," the authors write,
summarizing existing research. "Racial discrimination in employment can
also lead to lower income and greater financial strain, which in turn
have been linked to worse mental and physical health outcomes."
Three
of the highest-ranking educators convicted in the Atlanta Public
Schools test-cheating trial will get new sentences Thursday.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has covered the trial more thoroughly than any other news source since it began. Come to myajc.com or ajc.com at 2 p.m. to keep up with live coverage of what happens after Judge Jerry Baxter reconsidered his order to send the three former administrators to prison for seven years.
The
re-sentencing for Michael Pitts, Tamara Cotman and Sharon
Davis-Williams is scheduled to take place in Fulton County Superior
Court. Baxter said long prison sentences were warranted because
thousands of children were harmed by the cheating. But many of those convicted said the verdicts against them were based on lies from witnesses with grudges, and they vowed to appeal.
Most
of the teachers got a year or two in prison, in line with the
prosecution’s recommendations. The seven-year sentences for the former
School Reform Team executive directors far exceeded the prosecutors’
request of three years.
Minority employees are being retaliated against and
threatened with the loss of their jobs because of the pending Human
Rights Commission complaint against Fayette County Public Schools,
William Saunders, president of the Lexington chapter of the NAACP, told
the school board at a Monday meeting.
NAACP officials did not provide specifics but said the lack of minority hiring was also a big problem.
NAACP members have appeared at at least two other school board meetings to press for change.
"We
are putting you on notice this evening that this conversation will not
go away and will not be swept under the carpet neither," Saunders said.
"The NAACP and other community leaders will continue our quest to ensure
that all employees are treated equally and fairly and given the same
opportunities as their peers in the FCPS school district."
Of
particular concern is that of 115 central office staff members, only 18
percent are minority, despite the fact that the student population is 46
percent minority, said NAACP member Alvin Seals. He said a lack of
transparency was a problem.
Minority representation on the cabinet
of district leaders has fallen to 15 percent this semester, the lowest
since 2012, Seals said.
Acting Superintendent Marlene Helm
responded Tuesday: "Our school district is committed to consistently
treating all employees with fairness, respect and dignity. And if there
are instances where that is not happening, we need to be made aware of
the issues and we will address them head-on."
Helm told the
Herald-Leader last month that district officials were committed to
recruiting and retaining a diversified workforce. She said then that the
district was not satisfied with data and was actively working to
improve the numbers.
Anthony Everett, pastor of Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church, said the problems were systemic.
The Lexington-Fayette County Human Rights Commission has filed a discrimination complaint against Fayette County Public Schools.
Executive
director Raymond Sexton said Tuesday the investigation was continuing.
Sexton previously said the complaint was filed in January after he had
received several complaints alleging that district employees were
victims of race discrimination.
Saunders said there were several
departments at central office as well as within the schools where there
are no minorities or they hold mostly support staff or non-management
positions. There are cabinet members who do not have any minorities as
part of their management team, he said. There are cabinet members who do
not have minorities in their departments at all, Saunders said.
"The
leadership within the school district as well as the school board has
demonstrated by their non-action that they are not champions of
diversity nor inclusion," said Saunders.
The district continues to
practice discriminatory patterns against minorities in areas such as
salary and compensation, hiring and retention, said Saunders.
He
said the NAACP would be supporting all efforts for information to be
turned over to the state Office of Education Accountability, The Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission and the Human Rights Commission.
NAACP
members hope that the recently hired associate director of minority
recruitment and retention will play a vital role in ensuring an
equitable and diverse pool of candidates.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/04/28/3824070_naacp-president-says-minority.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
The office of state Auditor Adam Edelen is considering launching an
investigation into the University of Louisville Foundation after recent reports from Insider Louisville
and other media outlets revealed millions of dollars in deferred
compensation payments for some of the university’s top employees.
Stephenie Hoelscher, spokeswoman for Edelen’s office, confirmed to IL
Monday night that the office is “looking at the situation
preliminarily” but has not decided yet whether to launch a full-scale
audit.
“We are having internal conversations about the Foundation,” Hoelscher said.
Kentucky State Auditor Adam Edelen
Hoelscher did not reveal any details, although she did confirm the
conversations are based on recent reports about more than $5.6 million
in deferred compensation packages for U of L President James Ramsey,
Provost Shirley Willihnganz, and Ramsey’s chief of staff, Kathleen
Smith.
IL reported in February that the three had received generous packages
from the Foundation, which raises and spends private funds — some of
which go toward the university’s academic functions. The nonprofit
Foundation, which currently manages more than $1 billion, is governed by
a 16-member board that includes Ramsey and four members of
the university’s board of trustees. The trustees’ chair, Robert Hughes,
is also chair of the Foundation’s board. The dual roles has raised questions about both boards’ accountability.
According to recent tax documents, Ramsey received $2,437,312 in
deferred compensation from the Foundation last year, the result of an
incentives package that vested in 2013. Willihnganz, who is leaving her
post later this year, received $1,879,462 from the Foundation in the
same year. And Ramsey’s chief of staff, longtime U of L employee
Kathleen Smith, received $1,334,402 in deferred compensation.
Those packages include earnings on incentives, interest gained, tax
gross-ups, and additional taxable benefits such as auto allowances,
according to the Foundation, which defended the payments to IL as
necessary to retain top talent. Gross ups are provided to pay for the
income taxes assessed when the big deferred compensation packages are
claimed.
It is typical for universities to provide deferred compensation to
presidents. However, it is rare for such incentives to be offered to
provosts and even more unusual for them to be provided to a university
president’s chief of staff.
Earlier this month, WDRB reported that
the deferred compensation packages for the three officials were
backdated to provide investment results from the past, and that Smith
and Willihnganz were also each paid as much as $78,000 for an average
workload of two hours per week from a separate organization created by
the Foundation.
A spokesperson for U of L referred IL to David Saffer, an attorney
for the Foundation. He did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Junior
Meagan Brown knocked on teacher Katie Yandrick’s door Thursday,
politely asking to borrow an extension cord. It was near the end of the
day at Mercer County High and kids were restless. As Brown waited for
the cord, Katie Slope from Yandrick’s class came to the hallway and
began hugging her. Brown was fighting back tears.
Brown had just
finished an art installation in the hallway, something she started a
week ago, taking great lengths to get approval from the appropriate
faculty members and the principal, and someone had tried to destroy it.
But she wasn’t crying because of that.
“Today is the first time I’ve
felt accepted,” she said. Some people were watching over the art piece
when she wasn’t around, making sure no one else attempted to tear it
down. People walked up and hugged her. It had been an amazing day,
despite the problems, she said.
The top of the art piece said
LGBT in brightly colored letters, and below it was a girl intricately
cut out of black paper, seemingly being pulled in each direction by arms
with different things written on them — mostly words describing
feelings. “Anxiety,” “suicide attempts,” “depression,” “insomnia.” Most
of them were not positive words.
“These are words that described
what it’s like for someone in the LGBT community to go through daily,”
Brown said, still speaking very softly. She said she’s not good with
words, and pointed to the printed statement beside the piece of art.
She said this piece of art she’s
worked so hard on described the darkness someone who’s struggling with
their identity feels caving in on them, how it feels when others are
rude to you because you’re not like them. Brown said she tried to fit
into “normal standards” because people didn’t understand her, and she
fell into darkness.
“I made this because I want other
members of this community to know that they have support, people who
understand and who are there for them,” she said. But mostly, she did it
for her best friend, Chase Allen. He hears her begin to cry again,
walks up behind her and hugs her around the neck.
Allen is going through a lot of changes, Brown said, and he needs to know people are there for him.
But today, some people were
letting this community know otherwise. The top of the art installation
had been ripped down. Mean words were written nearby, “Die, faggot,
die,” and “gays suck” were a few. Bible versus were written on the wall
below.
“I’ve read the Bible, twice ...”
Brown said. There’ve been a handful of people giving pushback, she said.
But more than a handful of people offering support. A group of students
began to form as Brown and Allen continued fixing the piece, one male
student asking “Does the ‘T’ stand for, like, transsexual?” and a
conversation began between him and the others. Several stood back and
just watched. Some commented further.
Brown said the LGBT community —
which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender — includes
heterosexuals, too. “Straight allies are a part of the LGBT community as
well, so everyone is included in our little society.”
Brown said the amount of people
who have “come out” to her and thanked her for the art piece has been
amazing. That made her feel good, too, like what she had been through in
the past, all the hurt and despair, actually helped others possibly
avoid those emotions.
She said her community’s mission and requests are simple.
“Discrimination isn’t okay. Not
agreeing with being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people is okay
— just don’t discriminate or use derogatory terms toward those who
are.”
A divided Jefferson County Board of Education voted Monday night to
approve Superintendent Donna Hargens' central office shakeup that
includes outsourcing legal services, despite a heated debate and
numerous questions that were left unanswered.
The board voted 4-2 to allow Hargens to eliminate the office of general counsel,
which includes four positions and has a budget of $600,000 annually.
Board members Chris Brady and Linda Duncan voted against the measure,
while Diane Porter, David Jones Jr., Lisa Willner and Stephanie Horne
supported it. Board member Chuck Haddaway was absent.
The district will now put out a request for bids from law firms and
hopes to have one in place by July 1, Hargens said. She noted current
general counsel Rosemary Miller will retire and help with the
transition. Miller makes $175,200 annually and has been with JCPS since
1984.
Hargens told board members the move will “build
capacity in the district” to best serve the district's students,
teachers and employees. She told board members it will be their
discretion “on an annual basis” to review the outsourcing of legal
services.
Each of the board members – with the
exception of Jones – asked Hargens a multitude of questions about the
proposal, in terms of how much it would cost and how it would be
managed.
Hargens never answered how much it would
cost, only to say she was familiar with the approach because of her
previous experience in Wake County Schools in North Carolina, her
previous district. WDRB 41 Louisville News
“It's very frustrating to receive
this proposal without understanding what the problem is that we are
trying to fix,” said Duncan.
Duncan also noted that
the peer districts referred to State Auditor Adam Edelen's report have
an in-house legal services department. Those districts include Baltimore
County Public Schools (Maryland), Pinellas County Schools (Florida),
Austin Independent Schools (Texas), Cobb County (Georgia) and
Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina).
Brady said the timing of the proposal has been "poorly managed" and noted that it's a growing concern of his.
“No clear plan has been submitted,” Brady said. “I'm concerned about
the increased cost and delayed access that could have a chilling
effect.”"If I have to call and talk with an attorney's secretary, then
get passed to a paralegal and then eventually the attorney
themselves...the tax payer will get charged for the time of the
secretary the paralegal and attorney," Brady said.
Porter,
Willner and Horne also asked questions about cost and indicated that
they'd like more time to consider the proposal. However, moments later,
they approved the proposal.
Jones said he didn't
think more time was needed, saying the school board has asked Hargens to
figure out this “uncomfortable corporate reorganization stuff and that
is what she is trying to do.”
“We need to let the people do the jobs we've hired them to do and then hold them to account,” Jones said.
Brady said if the board's job is to “take her (Hargens) word for
everything, then that's a rubber stamp and that's not something I can
get behind.”
Jones said he was “not recommending that
the board be a rubber stamp, I'm recommending that the board follow
through on its good decision to hire Dr. Hargens.”
Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association,
told school board members his organization was in favor of the
proposal.”
“The current legal structure we have in
place tends to bottleneck,” McKim said, noting that some teachers wait
years on legal matters.
But Helen Haverstick, an
orchestra teacher in JCPS, said she had “grave concerns” over the
proposal, asking who would be able to call for legal advice and support
and also asked how much money this will cost the district.
Hargens said “171 of 174 school districts in Kentucky” outsource legal
services. However, Brady noted that Fayette County Public Schools in
Lexington, the second largest district in the state, outsourced its
general counsel in 2010, but has since returned to having an attorney on
staff.
Aside from Miller, assistant general counsel Stephanie
Malone, who makes $148,000 annually, will lose her job. Two other legal
department positions that total about $95,000 will also be eliminated.
In
addition to agreeing to outsource legal services, the school board also
approved Hargens' request to create a new cabinet-level position called
Chief Business Officer to oversee Cordelia Hardin, the district's chief
financial officer, and the new human resources director.
The position is expected to pay between $150,000 and $170,000, and a national search will be conducted.
An education policy leader
and long-time advocate for Kentucky’s children has been named executive
director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.
Brigitte Blom Ramsey was chosen by the committee’s board of directors
to succeed Stu Silberman, who will retire effective September 4, 2015.
She has been associate executive director of the statewide citizens’
group since May of last year.
“We are very excited Brigitte has agreed to serve as our next
executive director,” said Franklin Jelsma, a Louisville attorney who
chairs the committee’s board. “Above all else, we were looking for a
leader who is passionate about improving public education in Kentucky.
That is Brigitte in a nutshell. She is driven by her desire to help
children.”
Ramsey, a resident of Falmouth, is former director of public policy
for United Way of Greater Cincinnati, where she provided leadership on
early education initiatives and efforts to improve education funding.
She served on the Kentucky Board of Education from May 2008, when she
was appointed by the governor, until April 2014, when she left the board
to take the Prichard Committee post. She held the position of vice
chair during her last year on the state board.
Her background also includes work as an advocate for children and
extensive experience as a researcher on state tax and budget issues and
poverty in Kentucky. She’s been a member of Kentucky’s Early Childhood
Advisory Council since 2010 and was an elected member of the Pendleton
County Board of Education from 1998 to 2008. Ramsey holds a master’s
degree in public policy from the University of Kentucky’s Martin School
and undergraduate degrees from Northern Kentucky University.
“It is a tremendous honor to have the opportunity to lead the next
generation of the Prichard Committee’s work,” Ramsey said. “The progress
in education and citizen engagement over the last three decades has been remarkable. I look forward to working with the
committee’s members all across Kentucky to ensure our future success –
on behalf of our students, our schools and our communities.”
Jelsma expressed the committee’s appreciation to Silberman, whose
retirement will follow four years with the organization and 41 years in
education, including work as superintendent of the Fayette County and
Daviess County public school systems. “We are deeply indebted to him for
his years of service and his tireless work on behalf of education,”
Jelsma said.
Silberman expressed strong support for his successor and excitement about the work ahead.
“Brigitte will do a fantastic job and continue the great work that began
in 1983” when the committee was founded. “It has been a blessing to
work beside her during this year, and I look forward to the four-month
transition we will have together. The committee is in good hands as we
move into the future.”
It's called "Designing Your Life," a course that's part throwback, part foreshadowing of higher education's future.
Before Kanyi Maqubela became an investment partner at the
Collaborative Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on
social enterprises, he was a typical Stanford student in need of career
guidance. He was working with startups, studying philosophy, dating
someone special—and feeling overwhelmed.
Enter "Designing Your Life," a new and wildly popular course for
Stanford juniors and seniors that is grounded in design thinking
concepts and techniques. The course’s lessons gave him the perspective
he needed to navigate decisions about life and work post graduation.
"It really helped me understand what the concept of vocation was," he
says. "I had thought of it either as a narrowly religious concept or
for a specific job. But it’s this feeling that I have true agency over
my work, because I know what I stand for and I have tools to fix the
things that I encounter in my life."
He felt liberated, he says, by how the course positioned the idea of
career success: "Take your work personally, but it’s not your person."
At the time, "Designing Your Life" was still an experiment,
spearheaded by Bill Burnett, executive director of Stanford's design
program, and Dave Evans, who led the design of Apple's first mouse and
co-founded Electronic Arts before embarking on a second career in the
classroom. They launched the course in spring 2010.
"It took off in just about a heartbeat," says Evans, who oversees
instruction with help from guest lecturers and a small army of student
volunteers, who lead discussion groups. Today, 17% of seniors enroll in
"Designing Your Life," and many more vie for the limited seats in each
section. "We’ve had students literally teach the class on the side to
their friends who weren’t enrolled," he says.
Evans divides the course into two parts: first, he says, "We reframe
the problem. That’s where dysfunctional beliefs get blown-up. Then we
give them a set of tools and ideas to take steps to start building the
way forward." Each course section convenes for one quarter, two hours
per week.
Here's what they learn: gratitude; generosity; self-awareness;
adaptability. All reinforced by design thinking-based tools, from a
daily gratitude journal to a deck of cards featuring problem-solving
techniques. In lieu of a final exam—the class is pass/fail—students
present three radically different five-year plans to their peers. Alumni
say they still refer back their "odyssey plans"—a term that Evans
coined—and revise them as their lives and careers progress.
For years, students have resisted this kind of overlap between
university-sponsored programs and their private lives. After the Civil
War, mandatory chapel disappeared, academics rather than ministers
became university presidents, and courses like "Evidences of
Christianity" vanished from the required curriculum.
"Universities didn’t think they would necessarily be abandoning the
moral aspects of students’ education," says Julie Reuben, a Harvard
professor who studies the history of American higher education.
"Instead, they believed that freely chosen activities were more powerful
than externally forced activities."
But, to the chagrin of university leaders, many students abandoned
religion and instead embraced extracurricular outlets like athletics and
fraternities, which in their own way took on the function of
character-formation. In the mid-20th century, the university’s role as
authority figure became even more problematic and contested, as
protesters dismantled the Ivory Tower’s paternalistic structures and
paved the way for increasingly diverse and inclusive institutions. The
success of "Designing Your Life" suggests that students may be ready to
revisit that earlier university model, with conditions—conditions that
design thinking is perhaps well-suited to address.
"In the early academy it was all about moral formation. These days
you can’t do that," Burnett says. "Design doesn’t speak to ethics and
spirituality and all those things, but they work within its frameworks.
Our only bias is, hey, we can make the future better."
The goal of "Designing Your Life," he says, is to change higher
education—not by returning to religion, but by reintroducing methods of
"forming you into the person that will go out into the world, effect
change, and be a leader."
That message resonates with Stanford students. They are filled with a
sense of purpose and determined to solve the world's problems—but
ill-equipped, in our secular society, to make sense of what they value.
What's more, her parents are more supportive than they were before;
Wright presented her odyssey plan to them, too. "My family is all from
one area," she says. "Ultimately, after graduation, I plan on not being
around. I think I was able to convey to my parents more effectively why I
want to travel and what I want to get out of it."
As Burnett sees it, the course is also a neat fit for the mercurial
economy that students are graduating into. "The thing that’s true about
design problems is that you don’t know what the solution is going to
look like. You don’t start with the problem; you start with people," he
says. "You create a point of view about what a better consumer
experience would be. Then you prototype, you test, and you constantly
change your point of view. That’s perfect for your 'Designing Your
Life.' You can’t know the future, but you can know what’s available and
you can prototype different versions of the you that you might become."
That approach stands in contrast to the habit of "accumulating
accolades" that Burnett sees many students exhibiting at Stanford.
Indeed, pressure to succeed is very much top of mind for Stanford
students like Nick Xu, an architecture major from Sydney, Australia. He
pauses for a moment from his Aussie-accented praise of Evans's course
("freaking awesome!") to reflect in a more serious way on the campus
climate he and his peers inhabit. "Here, you’ve got to be viewed as
successful," he says. "There's a very empty pursuit of money—money’s a
big part of it—but also fame and perception, how other people view you."
"Duck syndrome" is a common malady: "You look like you’re floating on
the surface, but you’re paddling furiously underneath."
"I was a total duck," he adds. "I really needed this class."
Stanford administrators have taken notice of reactions like Xu’s.
"It’s a model, as an administrator, that is not cheap, because it’s
hands-on and requires small groups," says Harry Elam, vice provost of
undergraduate education. Nonetheless, he has asked Evans to develop a
pared-down version of "Designing Your Life" for freshmen and sophomores
as a complement to their academic advising. The resulting program,
"Designing Your Stanford," launched with its first cohort last fall.
Elam views both offerings as an answer to the prominent skeptics, like Peter Thiel,
who question whether the traditional four-year college experience is
worth the investment. "It’s very important that we reclaim what it means
to get a liberal arts education," he says. "College is not just a means
to an end, but an end in itself."
Buttressing that philosophy has taken on new urgency as "college"
migrates online; in 2013, over 5 million U.S. college students, out of
roughly 20 million, enrolled in at least one web-based course, according to the Babson Survey Research Group.
American universities—today an unwieldy mix of liberal arts,
professional training, and research—may have to focus in order to
compete, education writer Kevin Carey argues in his new book, The End Of College.
At a recent New America Foundation event, he pointed to the University
of Minnesota-Rochester, located near the Mayo Clinic, as emblematic of
the new model; the school offers only two majors, health sciences and
health sciences administration, resulting in a cost structure that is is
"a million times better than that of a typical second-tier
institution."
Stanford is very much a first-tier institution. Last year, it
admitted just 5.7% of the students who applied. But as a residential
college, it’s not immune from the vagaries of the shifting digital
landscape.
"As online education becomes more appealing, residential colleges are
thinking, what are the things you can only do face to face?" Reuben
says. "Colleges never dropped the ‘we’re about the whole person, we’re
about character’ from their rhetoric. In reality, it’s been easy for
them to talk about that but do academic content and skills. That’s what
they spend big resources on, and that’s how they select students."
On the surface, it’s hard to object to these initiatives, or to the
very idea of designing your life. "We’re an invitation to have more and
different ideas," Evans says. "There’s more than one person running
around in you, and they’re all you. Creating multiple solutions empowers
the one you ultimately decide on." He views the course as a
continuation of Thomas Jefferson’s description of the University of
Virginia as a "learning community to form citizen leaders."
But in my conversations with "DYL" students, both past and present, I
was sometimes struck by how exhausting their pursuit of "flow,"
"leadership," and "positivity" had the potential to become. It was as if
Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism had been re-staged in Palo Alto, California, circa 2015. Self-improvement, after all, can serve as a stand-in for salvation.
One phrase in particular—"being intentional"—was what caught my ear.
I'd only ever heard it in church, where pastors often talk about
"intentionality" in prayer, giving, or other behaviors.
"I’m now thinking about how to live my life with an intentionality
that I didn’t have before. It’s in my hands," Wright, the aspiring Peace
Corps volunteer/American Ninja Warrior, told me.
I asked Nadia Mufti, a social entrepreneur who graduated from Stanford
in 2011, what the phrase meant to her, after she used it several times.
In all of her odyssey plans, she says, there was one common theme: "I
wanted to take care of myself."
She went on to describe how she has followed through on that goal:
each morning she meditates for 30 minutes; she eats lots of green
smoothies and vegetables; she has gone gluten-free. "I’ve done
experiments on my body, and that’s when I feel best." She tries to work
out everyday, rotating between swimming, running, and yoga. She invests
in relationships. "I have been really intentional in cultivating and
maintaining close friendships, even when I’m really stressed." She tries
to read at least a book a month. "At one point, this is kind of taking
it to an extreme, but I had this chart on my wall with habits that I
wanted to create. Did you eat healthy today? Did you not drink today?
Did you see friends outside of work today? How do you feel, on a scale
on 1-10? I try to track if the things that I thought would make me happy
really worked, at the end of the day." She recognizes the importance of
gratitude. "My boyfriend and I, before we go to bed, say at least three
things that we’re grateful for." For her 25th birthday, she spent 25
days in the service of friends and family. It went so well, she extended
the project to 50 days. "I’d read a lot about servant leadership," she
says. "I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do that if I
hadn’t taken the ‘Designing Your Life’ course."
Her example left me feeling both inadequate and exhausted by
association. I began mentally calculating whether I had time after work
to bring a green smoothie to a friend I hadn’t seen in
months—relationships, service, and nutrients, all accomplished in one
efficient calendar block. Maybe I could bike there, for some added
exercise.
But at the same time, it was hard to argue with Mufti’s choices. In
her case, "Designing Your Life" had truly fulfilled its mission: she was
happy, healthy, and making the world a better place.
Recently Mufti has been back on campus, helping pilot "Designing Your
Stanford." Nearby, at the Graduate School of Business, another
"Designing Your Life"-based pilot is also underway.
Carly Janson, a director in the business school's career management
center, has been been adapting the course for incoming students. "It’s
not always easy to connect the dots between the legacy you want to leave
on the world and the career decisions you need to make today," she
says. Design thinking, values-based but practical, provides a bridge.
"Career services, as a field, could totally change the way that we
think about careers by applying design thinking," she says. Students
today are doing "careers design, plural," and schools need to catch up
to that reality.
The course’s success stories have started to attract attention
outside of Stanford's lush campus, and now plans to expand are in the
works. Evans and Burnett are raising funds from Stanford donors,
expanding their team, talking with other universities, and even working
with Google to develop a new version of the program for working
professionals. A book based on the course is due to hit shelves next
spring.
Finding a way to replicate the avuncular Evans, the charismatic heart
of the course, will be one of their primary challenges. Students gush
about his intelligence and warmth. "An amazing, amazing, amazing human,"
says one. "He is just the man," says another.
"We started this as a thing on the side, and now we’ve got some stuff
we have to build," says Evans. But at the core, the program remains the
same: "We invite people to live intentionally, in a generative,
thoughtful way, and we give them a bunch of tools." What happens next is
up to the students.
Worldview Stanford's blended online and on-campus course "The Science of Decision Making" opened Feb. 23. Learn more at: http://stanford.io/1uCPMCP
One indispensable measure of Transylvania University's stated intent to create leaders who “question everything,” would be the degree to which the institution creates a political environment where 1st Amendment freedoms are protected, and those who seek to become "cultured, informed and heard" are encouraged to speak up.
But that was placed in question by the student newspaper even before President Seamus Carey arrived, replacing President Owen Williams who departed in June 2014.
As members of a
community that aims to "question everything,"students of Transylvania
University This does not simply
apply to our education. Rather, our efforts of questioning have
extended to clubs, organizations, sports and our everyday lives.
Diversity and inclusion are both important pieces of this puzzle. While
we continue to hold meetings and discussions around diversity and
inclusion, our efforts have been slowed seemingly due to our
anticipation of a new president. But this is an issue which should not
be put off under any circumstances...
While the presidential candidates are whittled down, we
must acknowledge the importance of bringing this issue to their
attention. And, more importantly, we must continue our efforts in
staying united under diversity and inclusion. As a campus supposedly
built upon ideals of diversity and inclusion and made up of students of
all different backgrounds, our need for support has grown beyond what
has been supplied...
"Students cannot sit idly by and expect that the new
president knows what we need," James wrote. "It is not enough to
admit the diverse – when we simply admit and do nothing more, we risk
engaging in tokenism – but we must also strive to make them feel
welcomed and included."
“I think the biggest challenge college students might face is
alienation,” he said, “The student who’s not so connected—if you
recognize that and you act on that to make them feel connected, that
would be huge… If you did that, you would create a really unique campus.
And that’s what I think Transylvania can be.”
One month later, a former student who had felt alienated on the Transy campus from 200-2004, by "daily acts of racism," decided to reminisce on BuzzFeed. That led to a turbulent spring.
A series of
BuzzFeed essays written by an alumna sparked various emotions from
people on campus which ranged from validated to sad to angered—and
sometimes, that was all within one person.
The first of the essays, titled “A Black Girl’s History with Southern
Frat Racism,” was published on March 19. In it, author Tracy Clayton ’04
detailed some of her experiences at Transylvania, alleging that “daily
acts of racism occurred in front of my face.”
Editorial cartoon by Jesse Johnson
In her article, Clayton specifically mentions the Transylvania Kappa
Alpha (KA) Order chapter as displaying Confederate flags and being
unwelcoming to students of color, particularly black students.
“The experiences described by the reporter when she attended the school
in 2000-2004 are unacceptable,” said current KA President junior Josh
Buckman in an email statement. “There is no place for racially
insensitive words or actions.”
He continued, “Our fraternity’s values of gentlemanly conduct and
respect for others are paramount in all of our interactions on campus
and with others. We are looking forward to opportunities on and off
campus to promote inclusiveness. Our chapter, as a whole and as
individual members, is actively getting involved to ensure we play a
part in moving our campus community in the right direction.”
Acting Director of Diversity and Inclusion Serenity Wright ’05 was one
reader who had mixed emotions about Clayton’s essays, and one who agreed
with Buckman in that things are moving in a bit of a different
direction now.
“From my personal reaction, I was appalled—I was angered, I was hurt—on a lot of different levels,” said Wright.
Wright said that, as someone who attended Transy at the same time as
Clayton, she felt that Clayton had not done enough research into how
much progress the university had made in the last 15 years.
“I hear her, that it’s part of her healing process, and I get that,”
said Wright. “And while I think that some students feel validated by the
national publication of her feelings, it wouldn’t surprise me if some
also felt discounted because there’s no mention of the hard work they’ve
put in to make this place better.”
Students expressed both of these sentiments in their initial reactions to the article.
“I felt very validated, because a lot of those things were things my
friends and I had been saying our entire time at Transy—specifically the
part when she talked about transferring,” said junior Angelica Miller.
Miller, along with other members of the Black Student Alliance and
several sociology students, organized a demonstration shortly after the
essays were published to protest against the way the university handled
Clayton’s words.
“We really felt that the university wasn’t taking the article seriously,” said Miller.
At the same time, said Miller, she was frustrated that the university
had missed an opportunity by not acknowledging progress made by staff,
faculty and students in the recent years.
“(The university) could have used it as a launching pad to showcase the
efforts that they have done, and instead they didn’t,” she said. “They
basically closed their ranks. And that’s not useful for projecting a
progressive image. It’s also not useful for validating your staff who
are doing that work on a day-to-day basis.”
Wright, on the other hand, said she still hoped that these essays might
help push her office toward bigger, more tangible change on campus.
“My job right now as is, is supposed to be focused on solely student
programming, and that’s not going to be enough,” said Wright. “For me, I
want to continue to be a place where students can come and vent; where
they can express their feelings; where they can get help; where, if they
have an idea, we can use the weight of this office to carry it forward;
where I can advocate for them, whether it’s socially or academically.
I’m hopeful that (Clayton’s essay) continues to give amplification to
all of the voices on campus working towards creating an inclusive
environment.”
While it might do that at some point, some students feel that there are
many important dialogues which will lead to that destination. Sophomore
Justin Wright, who helped organize a series of community forums
alongside fellow sophomore Teddy Salazar and junior Brooke Jennett, said
he feels that letting everyone react to these essays before attempting
to move forward will be key.
“It’s a whole systematic thing, and we need to address this,” said
Parker. “If this is the place that we start, that’s great, but we need
to go further.”
These conversations must begin somewhere, and to Parker, validating
experiences is a good place to start—while keeping in mind that the
process is a two-way street.
“A lot of people on this campus come from areas where these things
aren’t something that is talked about or even thought about,” said
Parker. “So we need to address that as well. It’s an educational void,
an awareness void, on various issues.”
Many times, groups are discouraged from attempting to fill this void
because they do not want to appear insensitive, according to Serenity
Wright.
“I know there are white students on this campus who feel that they can’t
have conversations with minority students because they’re afraid
they’re going to get their head bit off or they’re afraid they’re going
to be told, ‘That’s stupid,’ or ‘You don’t know. You can’t sympathize
with me. You’ve never felt…’ And that’s really unfortunate on both
sides, because who’s to say that person hasn’t felt any aspect of
oppression?” she said. “Diversity includes a lot of different things.
It’s not just, did you check a box that says you’re not white?”
To Serenity Wright, this means that everyone embodies some kind of
diversity; as such, it becomes a greater struggle for everyone.
“We as minority students can’t just speak about these issues to
ourselves,” said Justin Wright. “If we’re going to do what the
university preaches about open and successful dialogue, we have to speak
about these issues that happen to minority students, and through them,
we have to speak to non-minority students.”
Serenity Wright said she recognized that students, faculty and staff who
identify as part of a minority group are tired of taking on this
burden, but she hopes that through programming like the microaggressions
workshops that she has helped sponsor—the next of which is scheduled
for April 30—this kind of intervention will continue getting easier.
“As my first boss told me as a young teacher advocating for my students,
count to 10 before you respond,” said Serenity Wright. “I think we all
need to remember to take a deep breath. I don’t think there’s anybody on
this campus who can say they don’t care, or who truly doesn’t care.”
She continued, “So now it’s just a matter of how are we going to move, and are we going to move together?”
I was one of few black students at a small college in Kentucky in the early 2000s.
Every day I was reminded just how unwelcome I was there.
When footage
of the University of Oklahoma’s SAE fraternity singing a disgustingly
racist chant — which included the phrase “there will never be a nigger
in SAE” — emerged a couple weeks ago, I felt many things, but surprised
wasn’t one of them. The video may have been taken at a private
fraternity event on a bus, but I know firsthand that pervasive racism in
white Greek organizations is not a new thing. I spent four years at a
mostly white college in Kentucky, where daily acts of racism occurred in
front of my face. So after seeing the way that some Southern white
college students act in the presence of black people, it did not
surprise me at all that they’d sing a fun little song about lynching
niggers when they think we can’t hear them.
Transylvania
University is a small college (yes, it really exists; yes, that’s really
what it’s called; no, I didn’t major in bloodsucking) in Lexington,
Kentucky. The school was a handful of blocks away from the better-known
University of Kentucky and an hour and some change away from Louisville,
where I’m from. That’s why I chose the school, in part; I was an
anxious kid who wanted to start over with a new group of classmates, and
nearly every high school student in Louisville enrolls in either the
University of Kentucky or the University of Louisville. Transy was far
enough away from home yet still close enough for regular visits, had a
great academic reputation, and a really cool name. And they gave me a
scholarship. I decided to commit to Transy without visiting the campus; I
felt like I knew enough about it, and again, they gave me the biggest
scholarship of any other school I’d been accepted to (I was also really
into vampire lore at the time). But on move-in day, my already rioting
heart nearly stopped beating altogether as my mother and I turned into
the dorm parking lot to find a Confederate flag in every window on the
second floor of one of the boys’ dorms.
When I enrolled at
Transylvania in 2000, there were about 1,100 students, and about 20 of
them were black — which, as I understand it, was a school record
(Transylvania was founded in 1780). A quick Google image search of the
school name yields acres and acres of smiling white faces, except for
the occasional basketball player. The college itself is about two blocks
of bright green grass and rich brown brick buildings punctuated with
trees that explode white in the spring. The apex of the campus, the
building proudly displayed in their marketing materials, is a stark
white building with big, stately columns called Old Morrison. There’s no
sweet way to say that Old Morrison looked like the Big House on an
antebellum plantation, so I won’t try to be poetic about it. So: It
looks like massa’s house, and paired with all the heavy limbed trees and
the blazing pink blooming
trees and the bluest sky you’ve ever seen in your life arching forever
overhead and all the melodic country accents traveling along with you as
you walk through the courtyard, it sometimes feels like you’re walking
through a scene in Gone With the Wind. And we all know what that was like for black folks. (Spoiler: slaves. We were slaves.)
Tracy Clayton caricature
The
back of the school, known as “back circle,” is anchored by a large oval
lawn punctuated with trees here and there. Transy’s student dormitories
are situated around this circle; the flow of traffic, once you enter
the circle’s entrance on the right-hand side, moves right, past the two
boys’ dormitories collectively known as Clay/Davis. You first come to
Davis Hall, home of upperclassmen and fraternity members — this is the
building that housed the row of Confederate flags that greeted my mother
and me. After that is Clay Hall, where Transy’s freshman boys live.
Davis Hall was named for Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy,
while Clay Hall was named after early 19th century Kentucky politician
Henry Clay, who owned slaves (but magnanimously freed them after he
died). Davis attended Transylvania, and Clay was once a faculty member
there. Forrer Hall, the girls’ dorm, rounds the circle. (Another man
with the last name of Clay — Cassius, who was an abolitionist — is also a
Transylvania alum. There aren’t any buildings named after him.)
Here’s
why there was a Confederate flag in each of those windows on the second
floor in Davis Hall. The school, being as small as it was, had Greek
organizations, but rather than having separate Greek housing, they had
Greek floors in the dorms where all members lived. The floor with the
Confederate flags in the windows was inhabited by the men of Kappa Alpha
Order, known as the KAs. Every black person on campus (and those who
were attuned to racial insensitivity) knew to stay away from the KAs.
They were the good ol’ Southern boys, and the organization itself was
founded on loaded terms like “chivalry,” “modern knighthood” (gee, why does that sound familiar?), and the “ideal Christian gentleman.” They list Confederate commander Robert E. Lee as their “spiritual founder,”
which still doesn’t really make much sense to me, and though it wasn’t
their official emblem, they were very, very fond of the Confederate
flag. Those windows and the flags in them belonged to the KAs.
When
I saw the row of flags in the building I instantly told my mother that I
wanted to go back home. She told me, of course, that wasn’t an option,
and so I dealt with it as best I could. I went to class, tried to be
open and sociable, and vented to my handful of black friends when we
were alone. But those flags never let me forget that I was not wanted at
any point in history, not then and not now, not in my temporary home,
the place where I slept, the place my mother was spending her
hard-earned money to send me.
Growing up in the hood, you assume
that living where white folks live means safer streets and unlocked
doors. But I never feared for my safety more than I did at Transylvania
University. Those flags were often the first things I saw in the morning
and the last things I saw at night, smugly watching me scurry to class,
snickering, mocking. Well, I do declare! Look at that uppity coon,
making like she belongs here, like she’s one of us. This is what happens
when you teach ‘em to read. Hope that nigger makes it home before thesun goes down.
I
couldn’t understand why we had to work so hard to get the KAs and their
supporters to understand that those flags were unwelcoming to
nonwhites, that they meant something totally different to us,
descendants of people who were enslaved and murdered and disenfranchised
on the turf that those flags flew over. I didn’t understand why they
pushed back so hard against us. We do not feel safe, said black kids in
campus forums and anonymous discussions and newspaper articles. This is
painful. This hurts us. This distracts us from learning. And the fact
that you don’t care for our happiness or well-being hurts us even more.
Their
rebuttal was, “It’s heritage, not hate.” The flag was just a symbol of
Southernness and Southern pride, not racism, not slavery. The cognitive
dissonance makes me laugh even today.
Another incident: During my
freshman year, I remember going to my dorm room window, which faced a
big green lawn across the street, after hearing chanting outside. It was
dark and raining, and through the streetlights I could see a bunch of
shirtless KAs, at least one draped in the Confederate flag, singing
“Dixie” beneath the trees (“Dixie” is listed as one of the “Songs of Old KA” and members are reportedly to stand facing the South when it plays).
I
don’t think we changed any minds, but the Confederate flags were
eventually taken out of the KA windows. At the time I thought that it
was because of the fuss we made, but according to these KA laws,
displaying the flag was banned in KA chapters everywhere in 2001. The
flag business was just the tip of the iceberg. Long after the flags were
removed their whispers still clung to the air and became screams inside
my head whenever I saw someone I knew to be a KA.
Some time after
the flags had been taken from the KA windows, I went to my first and
only frat party. I had a natural mistrust of fraternities — they aren’t
exactly known for being pro-woman
— and my time at Transy gave me motivation to mistrust white men in
particular. Throw liquor in the mix and it seemed like an all-around bad
idea for a black woman to wander right into the heart of the cesspool.
But I was curious, so I went with two of my best friends on campus, both
black women, to check out the scene. We may have moved through the
halls of Phi Kappa Tau, Delta Sigma Phi, and Pi Kappa Alpha, but I’m not
certain. All I remember is the KA Hall, my heart in my throat, my eyes
wide as spotlights trying to keep an eye simultaneously on my friends,
all the drunk men, and the nearest exits.
I remember the stares,
people silently but obviously wondering why we were there. In a sea of
skinny white girls and burly blond boys, three thick black women
definitely stuck out like flies in buttermilk. I was instantly
uncomfortable — the flags had been removed from the windows, out of
public view, but many of the KA brothers still had their flags displayed
in their rooms. The flags seemed oddly glad to see me and the fear on
my face. You scared, nigger? You should be scared. Somebody oughta put you in your place. Maybe tonight.
We
did not stay long. We made our grand exit after seeing a mountainous
white boy walking toward us, cheeks flushed raspberry red, blond hair
aflame, full-size Confederate flag draped around his shoulders. His face
and eyes were blank; he seemed asleep on his feet, stare transfixed,
walking a slow, deliberate pace. We moved out of the way as he
approached and he moved past us, continuing his trek. We left
immediately after and I felt like I’d just survived something, like I’d
escaped rather than walked calmly out the front door. As we walked back
to our dorm, the sound of rap music snaked through their open windows
behind us, barely concealing the taunting of the flags on the walls. Look like we got ourselves some runaways! Don’t stop walkin’ till you get to Africa, nigger!
As
if Confederate flags and singing Dixie in the moonlight and terrifying
parties weren’t enough, there was Old South Week, a weeklong celebration
leading up to the KA spring formal. It includes a parade wherein the
men dress as Confederate soldiers and the women in attendance (nearly
always white) dress in hoop skirts, high-piled curls, and other Southern
belle regalia (just look at how much fun these Texas Old South partygoers
were having back in the ’70s, complete with a guy in blackface with
“slave” written on his chest just in case someone didn’t get it).
The
first and only time I saw one of my schoolmates dressed as a
Confederate, I was alone, walking the paths through the impossibly green
courtyard lawn. I saw him in the distance, wearing pale blue from head
to toe, and I chuckled and shook my head thinking about how crazy it
would be if he were dressed as an actual Confederate soldier. The closer
I got, the deeper my heart sank until my sadness was interrupted by a
cackle that started at my toes and bubbled up and around my teeth before
thudding heavily into the ground. What else can you do but laugh when
you see someone in this century dressed as a Confederate soldier? What
does anyone do in the face of absurdity? You laugh. But it wasn’t funny.
KAs celebrate Old South Week at many colleges and universities in the South. KAs at the University of Alabama issued a formal apology
to the historically black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority after their Old
South parade — in which they were decked out in full uniforms —
“happened” to pause in front of an anniversary event they were having.
Kappa Alpha issued a national ban
on the donning of the Confederate uniforms the following year. But,
like the moving of the flags from the windows, nothing really changed at
Transy. I still felt unsafe and unwelcome. Could’ve had something to do
with the huge portrait of Jefferson Davis hanging in the lobby of the
hall that the KAs called home.
My friend’s dorm room door. Tracy Clayton
The boys’ dorms may have been named after both Davis and Clay, but
Davis received the most fanfare. A 9-foot statue of Davis hung in the
lobby of his namesake residence hall, and a huge bust of him lived in
the campus library. In April 2001 (April also happens to be “Confederate History Month”
in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Texas, and Virginia and in spots of other Southern states), someone
vandalized the door of a black male friend of mine by scrawling “nigger”
on it in black marker. My friends and I hurried over to take pictures
of the graffiti before the administration painted over it, which we knew
they would do quickly. Newspapers reported that someone scratched
another slur into the same door later, but I don’t remember that.
The
incident spurred another round of “important conversations” on campus
that typically lead nowhere, but this time did lead to the removal of
the portrait of Jefferson Davis, which I definitely saw as a good-faith
effort to at least pretend to care about whether or not students of
color felt safe and welcome on campus. I hoped that we were finally
chipping away at what really was a modern-day Confederate fort housing
men who actually thought of themselves as Confederate soldiers, who flew
the stars and bars and faced the south to sing “Dixie.” Then-university
president Charles Shearer said of the incident
and the portrait, “If you have African-American students who live in
that hall … I can understand how that would make them feel.”
His
understanding apparently ran out four months later when the portrait was
rehung in a different part of campus (“A portrait of Confederate
president Jefferson Davis has risen again at Transylvania University,”
reported the Associated Press),
its removal now positioned not as an attempt to ease worried brown
hearts and minds as it was before, but as a preplanned maintenance
removal. The same article contained praise for Shearer’s decision to
rehang the picture from the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a nod to
the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
And so Davis Hall
remained Davis Hall, home to Confederate sympathizers of all ages. I
often wrote articles for the school paper complaining about the racial
climate on campus (the newspaper staff was amazing and allowed me to run
some pretty sharp-tongued pieces), and at least one was ripped out and
taped to a wall in Davis with the words “A FINE EXAMPLE OF IGNORANCE”
scrawled across it with a marker that looked a lot like the one used on
my friend’s door.
The day before my graduation day, I walked about
the lawn of Old Morrison, strewn with lawn chairs placed for the
commencement ceremony. We’d already gotten our seating assignments and I
wanted to check mine out. Mine was near some scaffolding on the side of
the stage, and hanging loosely from the scaffolding, within eyeshot,
was a tiny black noose. I don’t know if someone put it there knowing
that I would see it. But it sure felt like it.
I don’t mean to
suggest, of course, that everybody living in the dorm or on campus was
racially insensitive and addicted to Confederate insignia — I met some
truly wonderful and beautiful people of all races at Transy. Nor am I
positing that members of KA were the only racially insensitive people on
campus. But I do mean to paint a picture of why that SAE video, while
jarring, did not surprise me. For a black girl fighting to get an
education in the South, fraternities were an early introduction to
privilege. I learned then that certain people could essentially do and
say what they wanted with little more than a slap on the wrist or a
moved portrait as punishment.
White fraternities seem to attract
the most privileged of already privileged men and boys, and they become
breeding grounds for all the “isms” that white exclusiveness can create —
sexism, classism, racism. And their offenses are often explained away
as mistakes. Someone wrote “nigger” on a black kid’s door? A prank gone
wrong. A girl is raped at a frat party? Boys will be boys. A group of
white frat boys sings a song about hanging niggers on a bus? Everyone
makes mistakes.
This week, as I clicked through my alma mater’s
website to jog my memory to write this essay, I noticed that all
references to Jefferson Davis seem to have been quietly removed, even
from the short list of notable alumni that ends the brief telling of Transy’s history. Davis is slated to be torn down and rebuilt soon. I wonder if they’ll quietly drop his name from that too.
Ouch!
Clayton's article must have been an unwelcome reminder for those progressive members of the Transy community who had hoped, and perhaps believed, that such attitudes were a thing of the past. But for some reason the university's reaction felt more like a cover up, which only goes to suggest that there is still something to hide.
Indeed, for a short time, a student named Drew (who posts on Facebook under the name Zeta C. Peninsulae) provided one more defiant and tone-deaf defense of Old South traditions in the Rambler. Before I had an opportunity to capture his rant, which rejected conversations about racial issues on campus as a waste of time (he does not feel like he needs any more) the message was taken down and replaced by a message from the editor stating:
"The author of a letter to the editor that was published last night has
asked that it be retracted in full. The Rambler has deleted the letter
from the website and social media, as it does not accurately reflect the
views of the author. We will no longer accept comments regarding it."
Asking some of my own questions, student Mike Laney responded to the Rambler.
"I’m a little confused here. The author wrote his opinion in a letter to
the editor, He then retracts it because it doesn’t accurately reflect
his views. Either he had a Paul on the road to Damascus moment or he may
have been bullied into the retraction. I don’t know. But I would
appreciate the author explain his reasons rather than have the editor
just post this note. This leaves a very unsettling feeling in my mind.
While I did not agree with everything the author wrote, I sure hope that
there was no pressure on him to retract. By the way, I feel that the
Buzzfeed article was written by a marvelous fabulist."
"I agree. I’m a little weary about this, considering how Transylvania
handled the first couple rounds of PR following Tracy Clayton’s article."
The extent to which the Kappa Alpha attitude is shared by the rest of Transy's Greek Community is unclear, an done ought not assume it is anything other than an outlier. But the strength of the fraternity system on campus is not in question.The Princeton Review ranked Transylvania University Second nationally for Greek Life in 2013-14.
More tangible evidence of the university's response came from the university's Director of Student Involvement and Leadership, who apparently decided that leaders should suppress free expression.
Transylvania University Told Some Students Not To Share BuzzFeed’s Article On Fraternity Racism
On Thursday, after I published an essay about the racism I experienced as one of the few black students at
Transylvania University, students began contacting BuzzFeed saying that
they were being discouraged from discussing the piece on social media.
On the heels of the SAE controversy, the essay
detailed the practices once employed at the Kentucky liberal arts
college by Kappa Alpha fraternity, an organization that lists Robert E.
Lee as its “spiritual founder.”
The university's Director of Student Involvement and Leadership on Thursday sent an email to the Greek students on campus, urging students not to discuss the article on social media.
Here's what one student tweeted about the letter:
One sorority member, who asked not to be named, told BuzzFeed News that her executive council threatened members who shared the article with discipline. Other students said they wer told not to share the essay.
Still, Transylvania's Vice President for marketing and Communications, Michele Sparks, said on Twitter that the university was "not forbidding any student from posting/sharing."
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Sparks claimed that students were told not to comment on the piece, though denied that they were told not to share the article.
…We did not ask Greek students to not share the article on social
media. We asked our Greek students to refrain from commenting. We didn’t
want any kind of retaliation or lashing out. We wanted to respond
carefully and thoughtfully to your article. We would never seek to
censor our students.
We are taking your article very seriously and it has sparked deep and
thoughtful conversations on our campus—which we are looking to continue
in meaningful ways in the coming days and weeks. We are always
concerned when we hear about injustices towards any of our students.
A request for comment from the Director of Student Involvement and Leadership has not yet been returned.
Transylvania University officials continued to deal Monday
with the fallout from an article by a former student that detailed the
racial hostility she felt there...The essay got even more publicity after a Transylvania official urged
students not to comment about it on social media.
On Friday,
Transylvania President Seamus Carey issued a letter to the campus
community near downtown Lexington, calling for a series of conversations
about race.
"All of us who have read the post must take the
issues it raises to heart, both institutionally and individually," he
wrote. "How can we learn from them and ensure that they are not a part
of our culture moving forward? An adequate response to these issues
cannot be captured in a letter. It must be realized in the open, free
and sincere exchange of perspectives and ideas." ...
"Ms. Clayton's personal
narrative depicts racially insensitive decisions made by the institution
as well as hurtful behaviors of members by a fraternity chapter," Carey
wrote. "These mistakes are not only a regrettable part of
Transylvania's past, but of our country's as well. However, for us they
are more regrettable because our primary reason for existing is to
elevate the knowledge, wisdom and moral character of our students."
Carey
said campus training on micro-aggression — subtle acts of exclusion,
derogatory or aggressive behavior — had already been planned for student
leaders in May, and the training will be expanded to the rest of campus
in the fall...
The national KA chapter in
Lexington, Va., issued an apology to Clayton for "any offensive words or
actions directed at Ms. Clayton or others." ...A statement from the national KA office in Lexington, Va., said the
fraternity has banned all Confederate flags and costumes because
"gentlemanly conduct and respect for all are the core values of Kappa
Alpha Order." ...
Lydia
Lissanu, a Transy senior who is vice president of the Black Student
Alliance, said Monday that Clayton's story brought her relief.
"I
felt sort of a sense of relief that someone had voiced their opinions
about something that had made so many people of color uncomfortable, and
that's the KA fraternity," she said. "It's a very contentious issue,
with a lot of anger, a lot of fear, a lot of hurt, it's an issue that is
very politically loaded on this campus."
Although no longer
allowed to hang Confederate flags, the fraternity's roots in old South
nostalgia are still potent, Lissanu said.
"The organization is
predicated on a history of hatred, but they have an incredible amount of
power," she said. "I think there is going to have to be discussion, but
I think there has to be action. What steps will they (Transy) take to
really deal with this issue?"
KA members at Transy referred all questions to the national chapter on Monday.
Echoing Ms. Lissanu's point, Clayton posted, "Why 'Starting a Conversation' about race on campus isn't enough."
When I hit “publish” on the essay
I wrote detailing my experience with racism while I was a student at
Transylvania University, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I figured
the article would resonate with other students of color who had or are
having similar experiences; it would be spread around by the handful of
us who have been through it all before; people would nod their heads and
say, “Yep, this is what it’s like,” or, “Wow, I didn’t know that’s what
it’s like.”
But the essay exploded online and is currently closing in on 200,000
views, a first for any essay I have ever written for BuzzFeed. I was
invited to appear on All In With Chris Hayes and The Melissa Harris Perry Show. It also blew up on Transy’s small campus in Lexington, Kentucky, so much so that some were cautioned
not to discuss the article on social media. There was an outpouring of
emails from people who could identify with my situation, emails that I
can’t imagine ever having the time to respond to with the thoughtfulness
they deserve. Many of those emails came from current Transy students
who said they felt silenced by the same institution I felt had silenced
me.
When you are young and full of fire and you feel you’ve had your
voice stolen from you, you don’t feel whole until you’re able to say
everything you couldn’t say then. I definitely feel heard, at last, but
there is no sense of resolution, of tied ends, of repair. I always knew
that I wanted to write about my experience once I left Transylvania —
but not to make the school look bad. Healing is never about the people
who hurt us; it is about us and our wellness. I just wanted to be able
to breathe again, to shake loose the boulder of everything I couldn’t
say from my chest and breathe freely. I did not want them to hurt. I
wanted them to hear me...
When it comes to difficult things like race and change, something
that people love to champion is “starting conversations.” When something
deplorable happens and people demand change, the thing to do is say,
“Well at least people are talking about it now! At least we’ve started a
conversation!” But we’ve been having these conversations for centuries.
And this particular one has been happening for at least 15 years. If
nothing is actually done in its wake, then it’ll be a conversation we’re
having for 15 more. What do we do? How do we fix this? I’m just a
writer, not a school administrator. I don’t have the answers, but I have
some ideas: Don’t wait until videos like the one from the University of
Oklahoma and stories like mine to become public to care about making
your institutions more inclusive. Don’t dismiss the offensive pranks and
practices often carried out by fraternities as “foolishness”
they they are “entitled” to. Capitalize on the influence that Greek
organizations have over their members by encouraging open-mindedness
when it comes to things like race, gender, and sexuality. Make an
honest, genuine effort to diversify your student bodies — don’t just
gather the handful of brown students you have for marketing photographs.
Actively seek to recruit students and professors of color. Encourage
them to speak up about their hardships and concerns and listen to them
when they do. Don’t be afraid to implement changes and stop offensive
traditional practices because you’re worried about losing money from
alumni. Make your campuses welcoming and safe for the people who will
call them home for at least four years. All of them.
You can’t kill a tree by plucking at its leaves; you have to reach
beneath the surface and kill it at the root. I’m very interested in
seeing what Transylvania President Seamus Carey and administrators at
schools across the country will do now that the stories of those who
were once voiceless are being heard.
Transylvania can be a success story. Melissa Harris Perry suggested
that Carey and his colleagues say, “We have been challenged on this
point, let’s talk about it and that is how we indicate how open we are,
how willing we are to engage in dialogue and discourse, and how unafraid
we are to be challenged.” Transy can be an example of how white
institutions can help their students of color be proud of their alma
maters. There is still time for us. There is still time for me to not
just be happy about the stellar classroom education at Transy or the
friends I made, but to become a full-fledged, proud Transy Pioneer.
Allusions to the power structure at Transy and the apparent lack of decisive action over recent decades only serves to fuel doubts about the institution's true intentions. Will the last vestiges of white supremacy finally be driven form the campus? Will powerful donors resist any retreat from the school's southern roots? Only time will tell.
But for now, the university's response is being viewed with some measure of skepticism.
Transylvania University, a private institution in Kentucky, was caught backpedaling (ineffectively) last week after it asked students not to remark on a recent BuzzFeed
article—a request that plainly contradicts the university’s own slogan,
mission statement, and written policies enumerating “Student Rights and
Responsibilities.” ...
In response to students’ rightful disapproval of McKee’s email,
Transylvania’s Vice President for Marketing and Communications Michele
Sparks...told BuzzFeed that Transylvania “would never seek to censor [its] students.” In the same statement to BuzzFeed, though, Sparks admitted that the university had indeed “asked … Greek students to refrain from commenting.”
At first glance, the two statements seem flatly incompatible. At
second glance, maybe Sparks simply means that the email was a
request—not a demand—for restraint. Here’s the thing though: Most requests
don’t come with a suggestion to immediately report to the authorities
when another person might not plan on complying. It is understandable,
then, that students were under the impression that commenting on the
article could lead to discipline.
And it’s understandable that students were confused about where
Transylvania stands on free expression. The university boasts the
following slogan at the top of its website: “Question everything. Accomplish anything.” Its mission statement
declares that the university “prepares its students for a humane and
fulfilling personal and public life by cultivating independent thinking,
open-mindedness, creative expression, and commitment to lifelong
learning and social responsibility in a diverse world.” Independent
thinking, eh?
That’s not all. The Student Rights and Responsibilities section of
the Student Handbook (which I could not find on its website, but which
is excerpted generously in the Faculty Handbook) states unambiguously:
Students are free to discuss, express opinions, and to
hear expressions of diverse opinions. As part of the freedom to learn,
students have the right to hear the widest expression of enlightened
opinion available to them.
[…]
It is recognized that free speech is essential in a democratic
society. Students are free to discuss and debate ideas and opinions in
the spirit of free inquiry.
Transylvania’s stated limits on free expression (listed in the next sentence)
include only acts that cause physical damage or injury, interrupt the
business of the university or its community members, or are otherwise
prohibited by law. There’s no reason to think that social media posts in
response to Clayton’s article would approach these limits. Even if some social media posts went beyond the traditional limits of free speech (e.g., true threats), that would not warrant a broad ban on public responses to the article...
Lex18.com reported
that Transylvania has released another statement on the controversy.
While the university’s statement may allay concerns that it is not
taking seriously race-related issues on campus, it does nothing to
address the school’s surprise gag order on students. Nor does it declare
the message of Thursday’s email to be rescinded.
So are students allowed to speak freely about the article now? It’s not clear.
Transylvania needs to issue one more statement, this time reaffirming
in clear terms that students do not have to self-censor or tattle on
their friends for speaking to the media. And if the university is
planning on abiding by its “Student Rights and Responsibilities,” it
should proudly post it somewhere that students can easily find it.
At the very moment the university should have been opening the door for the promised conversation about racial issues on campus, it was slammed shut in the face of Herald-Leader reporter Linda Blackford.
A Transylvania University official prevented a newspaper reporter from
attending a student-organized meeting to discuss race relations on
campus.
The official thwarted an effort by Lexington
Herald-Leader reporter Linda Blackford to attend the meeting, which was
promoted on Facebook as a "public and open discussion" of race relations
on campus...
On Wednesday, Julie Martinez, assistant director
of communications and marketing, told WKYT that reporters typically
inform the communications office before they visit the campus. She said
someone from the communications office would have met the reporter.
Martinez said there isn't a university policy; rather it is "a protocol
in our office."
“That’s the standard thing, that’s what people
normally do; that’s what our expectation would be,” Martinez said. “We
are -- and always have been -- a private institution.”
Once officials found out Blackford was on campus
"and interacted" with students, her office got involved. Still, Martinez
said "we welcome the media" and are "very happy to interact with the
media."
Tuesday's meeting was initially scheduled to be
held outside but was moved to the Mitchell Fine Arts Building because of
poor weather, the newspaper reported. The Herald-Leader said it was not
aware of such a policy and did not notify administrators that a
reporter would be attending the student-organized and student-led
meeting. Martinez said reporters were welcome to talk to students off of
campus.
Reached later, the Herald-Leader reported that
President Seamus Carey said the incident was caused by a lack of
communication from the Herald-Leader. If the reporter had called ahead,
administrators would have asked the students if reporters were welcome
to attend, he said.
"We welcome open dialogue at every turn at this
university — my philosophy of education is that the best thing students
can do for their education is to find their own voice," Carey told the
newspaper. "We want open and public dialogue. We're also sensitive to
the ability of students to express their feelings and thoughts in a safe
environment."...
According to Blackford, Tuesday’s meeting was
promoted on Facebook by sophomore Theodora Salazar as a place "where all
citizens of the Transylvania community can be free to discuss their
feelings and questions towards our community's internal respect or lack
thereof, as well as a space to facilitate discussion through the
feelings and thoughts of our peers."
Salazar said later that she would have welcomed
media coverage of the meeting because it showed how determined and
passionate students are about these issues.
"It showed that students are taking initiative,"
she told the Herald-Leader. "Part of the reason we wanted to do this was
because talking on screens is not enough."
It has been my experience that whenever people are confronted with conflicting messages between what an official says, and what that official does, it is the action that is believed. On that standard alone, one would have to conclude that Transylvania is not yet ready to enter the world of free speech. Actions suggest the institution is more interested in protecting private interests.
In a follow up story in the Transy Rambler Sociology Professor Brian Rich offered his opinion.
“I think the reaction came out of fear—that this article was going to be
understood as a harsh criticism of Transy—and I think the impulse was
to try to quiet things down while the administration formulated some
kind of response. But obviously
it backfired in the sense that students felt like they were being
censored.”
Some students, greek and independent alike, spoke out against that
request on social media. Senior Jen Schaefer said that she commented
because she felt that the administration’s intentions were not in the
right place when they asked students not to comment on the article.
“I think the reason the university told us not to comment…was they were
concerned with Transy’s greek life image,” said Schaefer, “and I feel
like, by doing that, they made the article much more about greek life
than it is. I think it’s more about how the administration handles
racism on this campus—or has failed to handle racism—and I think that by
just making it about (greek life) really minimizes the issue. So I felt
like I should speak up anyway.” ...
According to Carey...McKee’s intention was not clear in the email.
“It is my understanding that an email to students was poorly worded and did not convey the true intent of the author,” he said.
“At no time does Transylvania censor open dialogue. Students are always
free to speak their minds. One of the major goals of a Transylvania
education is to help students to find their own voice and to express it
proudly and clearly,” he continued.
Since the articles’ publication and the subsequent university response,
students have taken action to seize the momentum built by the essays.
Several students organized a demonstration in Haupt Plaza on Tuesday
afternoon, March 24, in which white students used brooms to sweep
students of color under a rug in protest of the administration’s
response.
Is it just me, or does anyone else hear the president attempting to play off the mishandling of this episode? He said, "It is my understanding that an email to students was poorly worded.." That sounds like he never read the email for himself (even in the days between McKee's email and his statement to the Rambler)and I'm trying to figure out how that's possible. Is Carey so detached from this issue that his statement is true? In the midst of a volatile situation, did he not have an interest in reading the email for himself, as I imagine any effective leader would?! Or did he really read it, but cannot be trusted to admit the truth? I'm not entirely sure which is worse, but I can't think of any other plausible explanations.
Referring to the denial of Blackford to attend the public forum the Rambler wrote,
Can students invite the public or media to campus without notifying administration first?
“It was just really disturbing that the school turned something that was
trying to be so positive and so active…into something that they needed
to fear, like they didn’t know what anyone was going to say,” she
continued.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology Hande Ozkan said that though the
university may have reacted to Clayton’s articles out of fear, she hoped
they would not lose sight of the original message and its potential for
the university.
“My initial reaction was, of course, that I was upset and also angry at
the same time,” she said. “But also, I thought about it over the
weekend, and I thought, this article could be used in a constructive
way. Why not make this a moment to reflect and to talk about where we’re
failing and where we’re succeeding?”
