IHE: White Faculty Applicant Sues Over Racism

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: Asked to Discuss Her Whiteness

The concept of racism on campus is out of hand in all respects.

[downer]

IHE: Asked to Discuss Her Whiteness

The concept of racism on campus is out of hand in all respects.

I wonder if the college will settle to make the case go away. I imagine search committee chairs all over are made nervous by this sort of thing.

It seems pretty common for search committees to ask something like "what steps do you take to relate to a diverse student population?" Probably that's coded language for race. Is it racist to ask someone how they relate as teachers to students of different ethnicities and traditions? Is it something that search committees would actually benefit from knowing? If I were on a search committee at a place with a significant minority population, I might well be curious about what some candidates would say about that. Though I might not be looking for the standard answers.

[marshwiggle]

IHE: Asked to Discuss Her Whiteness

The concept of racism on campus is out of hand in all respects.

Willison then allegedly asked, "Regarding your whiteness, I mean, I identify as being white like you do, so how aware are you of your whiteness and your white privilege and how Black students may not be able to relate to you because of your white privilege?"

First of all, isn't the idea of "trans-racialism" a no-no? I thought race was supposed to be immutable and inherent. You can't "identify as" whatever you like.

Second, unless all of the students are clones of the instructor, isn't the idea that students "may not be able to relate" because of their differences a hole with no bottom? (Not to mention, do you have to "relate" to learn any subject?)

[dismalist]

I thought race was supposed to be immutable and inherent.

Yes, like class. One is either the exploiter or the exploitee. That's why economic and social mobility, real attributes of capitalism, were always anathema to Marxists. Don't fit into the theory.

Race and gender have taken the place of class.

[mahagonny]

Just imagine a world where we will be required to take DNA tests and have official racial designations on government issued ID such as a driver's license.
If as I understand the first homo sapiens inhabited Africa, then we are all African and as for skin color, just different shades of grey. But a DNA test would not show that and of course eliminating racial categories would undermine the desired world order.

[Wahoo Redux]

Imagine a world in which adults respond in an adult, rational manner to an actual cultural problem.

[Anon1787]

Interviewer: You are an admitted atheist and as such guilty of a mortal sin. How will you relate to our students of faith?

That's basically what Bridgewater State did. Let Bridgewater State go private sectarian if it wants to impose an orthodoxy on faculty.

"Any possibility of discriminatory motive is contradicted by the fact that the university ultimately hired two Caucasians" in addition to one Black woman, the college reportedly told the commission.

The "I'm not racist; I have Caucasian friends" defense!

[dismalist]

Interviewer: You are an admitted atheist and as such guilty of a mortal sin. How will you relate to our students of faith?

That's basically what Bridgewater State did. Let Bridgewater State go private sectarian if it wants to impose an orthodoxy on faculty.

"Any possibility of discriminatory motive is contradicted by the fact that the university ultimately hired two Caucasians" in addition to one Black woman, the college reportedly told the commission.

The "I'm not racist; I have Caucasian friends" defense!

Oh, hell, let's have quotas and be done with it.

[mahagonny]

If it had been me applying for the job, I would have announced at the outset that I am gender non-binary. Then when the interviewer mentioned race I would have informed them that I do not identify racially. Non-specified. Then when asked how I relate to students of any particular race I would inform them that my religion and my training compel me to treat all persons as I would have them treat me. 'The Golden Rule.' Then when I didn't get hired I would sue them for discriminating against me for being gender non-binary, because they need a learning experience.

[Parasaurolophus]

It's weird how HR intervenes in all kinds of ways that make things worse for everyone (e.g. their application forms and software, etc.), but they never seem to manage to ensure that interviews proceed by the book.

Just imagine a world where we will be required to take DNA tests and have official racial designations

You can't get there from DNA alone, so while I can imagine such a world, it's not a nearby possible world (it's not 'safe', in the possibilist jargon). It's in a distant possible universe where biology works differently.

[mahagonny]

It's weird how HR intervenes in all kinds of ways that make things worse for everyone (e.g. their application forms and software, etc.), but they never seem to manage to ensure that interviews proceed by the book.

Just imagine a world where we will be required to take DNA tests and have official racial designations

You can't get there from DNA alone, so while I can imagine such a world, it's not a nearby possible world (it's not 'safe', in the possibilist jargon). It's in a distant possible universe where biology works differently.

Interesting. You'd know better than I would.
Wouldn't it bug you and other social justice activists though to find you are unable to assign race to anyone? Without white people, there are no culprits, no one whom you can require to change to compensate for their race-associated defects.

[marshwiggle]

Imagine a world in which adults respond in an adult, rational manner to an actual cultural problem.

Sarcasm is a pretty natural way to deal with poorly-conceived, politically-driven attempts to achieve some supposed goal like "inclusion". For just one example of this in the current context, the idea that whether a student can "relate" to the instructor, (and whether that actually has any measurable impact on student learning), is important in hiring is simply assumed with the implication that it is inherently obvious.

Establishing that it's an "actual cultural problem" has to precede any "adult, rational" discussions of what to do about it.

[mahagonny]

Imagine a world in which adults respond in an adult, rational manner to an actual cultural problem.

Sarcasm is a pretty natural way to deal with poorly-conceived, politically-driven attempts to achieve some supposed goal like "inclusion". For just one example of this in the current context, the idea that whether a student can "relate" to the instructor, (and whether that actually has any measurable impact on student learning), is important in hiring is simply assumed with the implication that it is inherently obvious.

Establishing that it's an "actual cultural problem" has to precede any "adult, rational" discussions of what to do about it.

If you mean me, my post (reply #4) wasn't sarcasm. It was pure fear. As was perhaps noticed by Para above.
Otherwise...
If there is some slippage in learning because the instructor is white and the student is black, then that would be an argument against striving for a diverse teaching environment. I was just getting used to the idea that more diversity is always an advantage. So hard to keep up...

As for actual cultural problems, if we don't have enough of those, then some pretty important people, the  professional solution-finders, are out of business. How will everybody get tenured?

[Caracal]

IHE: Asked to Discuss Her Whiteness

The concept of racism on campus is out of hand in all respects.

I wonder if the college will settle to make the case go away. I imagine search committee chairs all over are made nervous by this sort of thing.

It seems pretty common for search committees to ask something like "what steps do you take to relate to a diverse student population?" Probably that's coded language for race. Is it racist to ask someone how they relate as teachers to students of different ethnicities and traditions? Is it something that search committees would actually benefit from knowing? If I were on a search committee at a place with a significant minority population, I might well be curious about what some candidates would say about that. Though I might not be looking for the standard answers.

It seems relevant that the candidate indemnified herself as white in the lead up to the question. If the school interviews a black candidate and they just ask "as a black person, how do you relate to white students?" that is a problematic question. However, if the candidate said "as a black person, students relate to me differently than they do to white instructors" it would be perfectly appropriate to ask how they think that plays out with white students. Of course the question couldn't be couched in a way that implies a black instructor would be less effective or that students wouldn't respect them or something like that. Same thing here and I don't think there's an issue with the phrasing. They didn't imply she wouldn't be able to relate to or interact with black students-they just asked how she would do that as someone who just said they identified as white.

[marshwiggle]

IHE: Asked to Discuss Her Whiteness

The concept of racism on campus is out of hand in all respects.

I wonder if the college will settle to make the case go away. I imagine search committee chairs all over are made nervous by this sort of thing.

It seems pretty common for search committees to ask something like "what steps do you take to relate to a diverse student population?" Probably that's coded language for race. Is it racist to ask someone how they relate as teachers to students of different ethnicities and traditions? Is it something that search committees would actually benefit from knowing? If I were on a search committee at a place with a significant minority population, I might well be curious about what some candidates would say about that. Though I might not be looking for the standard answers.

It seems relevant that the candidate indemnified herself as white in the lead up to the question.

Unless I missed something, it was only the interviewer who identified herself as white.

The only point from the candidate was:

The topic then turned to race, with Johnston mentioning that she had discovered one of her ancestors was Indigenous, according to the complaint.