Coloring the Ivory Tower: The Problem with Affirmative Action
An article published in the L.A. Times last week revealed that nonwhite faculty members at UCLA had endured considerable discrimination. Having spent, as the subtitle of my memoir indicates, forty-eight years in white institutions, I was not surprised to learn that racism was so prevalent in a highly-ranked university. In fact, the Kirkus Review of my book describes it as "an unflinching account of the serious discriminatory practices that fester in the supposedly enlightened ivory tower" and comments on the "formidable sexism and racism" that I faced. The reviewer was referring, I am sure, to the American Literature professor at UCLA's sports rival, USC, who thought I was stealing typewriters when he saw me in the English Department early one morning, and to another USC professor who told me when I showed up at his house with two male classmates that I looked like a hostess and asked me to cut the cheese for the class party. When I let that man know that I didn't come to graduate school to cut cheese, he just smiled and waited for the next woman to arrive. The blue-eyed, blonde woman didn't mind cutting the cheese, but not only was that white man sexist, he was a fool not to realize that asking the only black woman (in fact, the only nonwhite woman) in his class and in the USC English Department graduate program to serve as a hostess was insulting and racist. That ivory tower dweller was definitely not enlightened when he encountered me in 1972. And then there were my tepid letters of recommendation, written by the white male USC faculty. Two of them said that I would make a good two- or four-year college professor. I was earning a Ph.D., but their letters suggested that I wasn't qualified to teach graduate students.
The best example of how post-civil rights era racism works in the ivory tower, however, occurred at Cal Poly Pomona, where I taught for thirty-one years. I had been a lecturer at Cal Poly while I was writing my dissertation and had asked the chair if there were any fulltime positions on the horizon when I was finishing. When he said, "no," I took a position at Tufts University. But I had been at Tufts for only a couple of months when the assistant chair called to tell me that there were two positions, and I should apply for one. I was hired along with a white male graduate of UCLA. Because we were hired at the same time, my white male colleague and I had to compete against each other for tenure and promotion. Although we both met the criteria for tenure and promotion, we had to be ranked because occasionally the university did not have enough funds to promote everyone who is qualified. That was not the case both times that the white man and I applied for promotion. Still, we were ranked.
I captured the first competition for ranking in a parable that I wrote in 1989 and published as an Appendix to my memoir. The parable was titled "The Race: Affirmative Action and Negative Reaction." In the parable, Evelyn Ashford, who represents me, is racing a white man named (somewhat maliciously) Charlie Blank. The official of the race, a man named Mr. White, hands Evelyn two-pound weights to carry, puts hurdles in her lane, and then tells her to step back two feet. When Evelyn races Charlie in the one hundred yard dash, he barely edges her, but Evelyn protests because Mr. White handicapped her. Of course, she loses the protest as well as the race. The parable ends with: "Defeated, but still in the race (pun intended), Evelyn left the track."
My seventy-something white male colleague from Texas, who was my first reader, thought that the two-pound weights and hurdles represented all of the socio-economic obstacles that I had to face before arriving at Cal Poly. After all, my white male competitor was the son of a doctor while my father finished only tenth grade. He probably attended a highly-ranked elementary school while I skipped kindergarten (I was living with my illiterate grandmother at the time) and spent my first six school years in a separate and unequal all-black elementary school. However, I had overcome those obstacles by working hard at a highly-ranked public high school, Evanston Township High, and at two private "white" universities, Northwestern and USC. So the weights and hurdles represented the new obstacles that the white male chair placed in my path to make it more difficult for me to compete against Charlie. I was given a difficult committee chair assignment that was not supported by released time, which meant that my full teaching load consisted of three classes while Charlie, the Basic Writing Skills coordinator, taught only two. I was even asked to teach a fourth class, a third composition class, for three weeks when an older colleague was sick. I refused to do twice as much work as my white male colleague, even though the promotion process was used to pressure me.
Several years after he put me in my place by handicapping me in the RTP (retention, tenure, promotion) process and then voting with the majority of the RTP committee to rank me second behind the white man, the by then former chair joined with two other white men to sabotage an attempt by the university to diversify the faculty. I was on the department diversity committee, along with a Latino male, but the three white men outvoted us. They didn't believe that we should have a special diversity hiring procedure so they just refused to present any of the many qualified applicants to the department. When I heard that the Associate Vice President of the University had accused our department of racism, I rushed to his office to tell him what had happened because I knew that the white men would try to use the Latino man and me as shields against the racism charge. I pointed out that I didn't get two votes because I was black and a woman, so I was usually outvoted by the white men.
Affirmative action may have made it more difficult for the old white boys' network to conduct business as usual, but it did not end racism in the ivory tower. Unfortunately, the people in charge of making affirmative action work in the universities were too often like the Republican governors in charge of implementing the Affordable Care Act. They didn't believe in it, so they tried to sabotage it. Too often these "old white boys" didn't recognize what my Texas colleague realized after reading my memoir. The black female perspective is not only different but valuable.
The best example of how post-civil rights era racism works in the ivory tower, however, occurred at Cal Poly Pomona, where I taught for thirty-one years. I had been a lecturer at Cal Poly while I was writing my dissertation and had asked the chair if there were any fulltime positions on the horizon when I was finishing. When he said, "no," I took a position at Tufts University. But I had been at Tufts for only a couple of months when the assistant chair called to tell me that there were two positions, and I should apply for one. I was hired along with a white male graduate of UCLA. Because we were hired at the same time, my white male colleague and I had to compete against each other for tenure and promotion. Although we both met the criteria for tenure and promotion, we had to be ranked because occasionally the university did not have enough funds to promote everyone who is qualified. That was not the case both times that the white man and I applied for promotion. Still, we were ranked.
I captured the first competition for ranking in a parable that I wrote in 1989 and published as an Appendix to my memoir. The parable was titled "The Race: Affirmative Action and Negative Reaction." In the parable, Evelyn Ashford, who represents me, is racing a white man named (somewhat maliciously) Charlie Blank. The official of the race, a man named Mr. White, hands Evelyn two-pound weights to carry, puts hurdles in her lane, and then tells her to step back two feet. When Evelyn races Charlie in the one hundred yard dash, he barely edges her, but Evelyn protests because Mr. White handicapped her. Of course, she loses the protest as well as the race. The parable ends with: "Defeated, but still in the race (pun intended), Evelyn left the track."
My seventy-something white male colleague from Texas, who was my first reader, thought that the two-pound weights and hurdles represented all of the socio-economic obstacles that I had to face before arriving at Cal Poly. After all, my white male competitor was the son of a doctor while my father finished only tenth grade. He probably attended a highly-ranked elementary school while I skipped kindergarten (I was living with my illiterate grandmother at the time) and spent my first six school years in a separate and unequal all-black elementary school. However, I had overcome those obstacles by working hard at a highly-ranked public high school, Evanston Township High, and at two private "white" universities, Northwestern and USC. So the weights and hurdles represented the new obstacles that the white male chair placed in my path to make it more difficult for me to compete against Charlie. I was given a difficult committee chair assignment that was not supported by released time, which meant that my full teaching load consisted of three classes while Charlie, the Basic Writing Skills coordinator, taught only two. I was even asked to teach a fourth class, a third composition class, for three weeks when an older colleague was sick. I refused to do twice as much work as my white male colleague, even though the promotion process was used to pressure me.
Several years after he put me in my place by handicapping me in the RTP (retention, tenure, promotion) process and then voting with the majority of the RTP committee to rank me second behind the white man, the by then former chair joined with two other white men to sabotage an attempt by the university to diversify the faculty. I was on the department diversity committee, along with a Latino male, but the three white men outvoted us. They didn't believe that we should have a special diversity hiring procedure so they just refused to present any of the many qualified applicants to the department. When I heard that the Associate Vice President of the University had accused our department of racism, I rushed to his office to tell him what had happened because I knew that the white men would try to use the Latino man and me as shields against the racism charge. I pointed out that I didn't get two votes because I was black and a woman, so I was usually outvoted by the white men.
Affirmative action may have made it more difficult for the old white boys' network to conduct business as usual, but it did not end racism in the ivory tower. Unfortunately, the people in charge of making affirmative action work in the universities were too often like the Republican governors in charge of implementing the Affordable Care Act. They didn't believe in it, so they tried to sabotage it. Too often these "old white boys" didn't recognize what my Texas colleague realized after reading my memoir. The black female perspective is not only different but valuable.
No comments have been added yet.
