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Upsetting situation at school

  
  

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Evil Scientist
12:29 / 01.03.07
I personally don't have a problem with MW's contribution. It's important to unpack why something like this is not acceptable. If someone doesn't understand why something is offensive they should most certainly feel free to ask for clarification.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
12:30 / 01.03.07
If you are a thoughtless bigot who happily and openly discriminates against a section of society--including your students or potential students--then you are not competent to hold an academic position. You should either gain the required competence, stat, or you should be fired. End of.

Yeah, you know what, you're probably right. I don't know why I was trying to see it from this idiot's point of view. If he did it deliberately, because the flyers represent beliefs he holds, he's a racist; if it was some kind of weird accident and he was so caught up in the math-solving aspect that genuinely didn't notice any reason for offence, he's still an idiot who's inadvertently insulted and oppressed a significant part of the student body, and is arguably too stupid to teach.

There are probably some kind of equal opportunities training programs for tutors who need their minds rewiring that way ~ and that might well be the first response of the instutition, rather than suspending or sacking someone ~ but I don't know why I bothered playing devil's advocate for this guy, really.
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:37 / 01.03.07
Damn puter just ate my response....so briefly.

This is totally out of order, and I think there are two main ways to deal with it. You can make a formal complaint, which you might prefer due to the broader impact it may have, though it might also turn out to be more stressful for you.

Otherwise, you can try raising the matter informally with a sympathetic member of the math department or, failing that, the head of department. This will almost certainly get the "jokes" removed, since no one will want to deal with the possibility of facing a formal complaint.
 
 
HCE
13:04 / 01.03.07
Thank you, everyone. A few things:

1. These items are taped to the inside of the instructor's office window, and face a hallway in the math complex. Courses for other departments, such as the Poli Sci course I'm taking, are also held in this department. This is where the instructor's office hours are held. If you're a student and need clarification on some issue, that's where you'd go, to his office. If you need to check on his office hours, they're a few inches over from these signs. I cannot imagine what it would feel like if I were one of the many first- or second-generation immigrant students, perhaps still with an accent, and needed help understanding something -- and had to see that in an instructor's window when I went to him for help.

2. I do not want them removed, because the hostile learning environment created for the students and the hostile working environment created for the staff are not the only problems. The problem is that somebody who has made public a hostile, bigoted attitude toward a substantial population of the community, not to mention the very people he's being paid to teach, holds and continues to hold a position of influence.

3. I welcome any arguments you can think of that could possibly be made in defense, because when I hand this over to the student associations, I want to have it as complete as possible. I am not giving him an inch on free speech, 'it's just a joke', 'how come other instructors can post X', or anything else. I am going to document other instructors' window displays and check on his history and whether there has been any previous action taken.

4. I am taking deep breaths and trying not to let this person's hateful vomit get onto my shoes, so to speak.

I really, really appreciate the support from you guys.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
13:17 / 01.03.07
I seem to have done well at this above, gourami ~ and sorry for derailing your thread somewhat with my own indulgent talk about my own confused response.

From this position there are four working defences I can think of:

1. It was a joke about declining standards in math ~ nothing to do with ethnicity. The first examples are unrelated to race or culture and are clearly about questions in tests becoming ludicrously easy. The final joke is a logical conclusion by asking an absurd question about tortillas! I found it plain funny.

1a) Look at these other cartoons in my office, poking fun at white people. These ones make professors look ridiculous! The joke's on me here... why can't Latinos take a joke too? We should maybe lighten up a bit. If we're all going to get along in an integrated society, we all have to learn to laugh at ourselves... and each other!

1b) Look, I'm eating a taco. I love that kind of delicious food. I read Latin American novels. It's a great, rich culture. I'd hate to think I'd offended such a wonderful people. In fact, I tore down the flyers yesterday. Let's put this behind us.

2. Sure, the joke said we could fill the moat with alligators. It's a ridiculous image, of course! But I think it suggests that illegals ~ criminals! ~ would be deterred by the sight of those snapping jaws! I don't feel the joke says anyone should REALLY be eaten up, do you? And illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from good, law-abiding Latino peoples. It's only a light-hearted suggestion, but I think it makes that serious point. Illegal immigrants hurt all of us, and our integrated society.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
13:21 / 01.03.07
[1c. I'm sorry you misunderstood. We clearly have different takes on this, and that's what's so wonderful about interpretation... though it can be confusing. That's why it's good to talk about these things. The joke is mocking white Americans for not being able to understand other cultures and their languages. It's predicting that in 2010, those Anglos in this state will find it pretty hard to get by, if they persist in not learning Spanish!]
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:45 / 01.03.07
Might be an idea to contact the admin/Human Resources department for the college and find out what the official policy is with regards to racist behaviour from employees.

I think that the possible justifications you might encounter suggested by Miss Wonderstar can generally be dealt with by applying local government law on racist speech and behaviour. Again I'm working from how the company I work for would deal with it, but it should be quite hard for him to wriggle off with "It's just a joke, get a sense of humour.".

As I said previously, he is in a position of authority and his words carry weight. So even if he's putting it up as some kind of satire there is a good chance that some of his students will take it as racist and become offended by it. As you yourself point out Gourami it is in a position where it can be seen by anyone who wants to approach him for advice, and having what could (very easily) be seen as a racist diatribe against anyone descended from immigrants on the door might discourage students from approaching him for help with their maths.

He's not being paid to be a comic, he's being paid to teach maths to the students.
 
 
HCE
18:58 / 01.03.07
Update:

I spoke to the fantastic folks at the Latino student center, who were horrified. One staffer there accompanied me to the instructor's office and took a look at the materials himself, and then went with me to the office of the Dean of the department.

The Dean told me that the instructor in question has been teaching here since the 50s. I expressed astonishment that in all those years it had not been made clear to him what was and was not appropriate. I was given to understand that I had not quite understood the point. I was told that he is very old and set in his ways, and was unlikely to change his attitudes. I responded that a person unable to change the attitude that Latino students are incompetent to learn math is not qualified to teach them and should be removed. I was told that she would ask him to take down the sign.

The people at the Latino student center told me that they had informed MEChA -- an association for Chicano (and other) students in math and engineering, and that their faculty advisor would be bringing it up in their meeting. I also sent a letter and my photos of the offending materials to them, and was assured that they would be passed along. In addition, I spoke to the people on the staff of the school paper, who were very attentive and told me that a news editor would bein touch.

I feel a bit better, having done everything that I can for today, and am trying to get on with my week.

Thank you all again for being helpful and supportive.
 
 
electric monk
19:04 / 01.03.07
gourami, you fucking rock. That's all there is to it.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
19:22 / 01.03.07
Seconded.
 
 
Olulabelle
19:35 / 01.03.07
I think that you have done all the right things and spoken to the right people and it's good to read that you didn't just go "Oh, OK..." when you were told he was old and had been at the college a while.

Have you thought about contacting a newspaper?

I'd very much like it if you could keep updating this thread as things happen (if they happen). I think people here are very interested and keen to support you in any way they can. I know I am.

Good luck Gourami, I really feel for you and I think it shows great strength to be addressing the issue.
 
 
*
20:50 / 01.03.07
Good job, gourami. I second Lula's advice about contacting a (non-school) newspaper as well. There are further problems to be dealt with: The Dean who sees this as the harmless quirk of an older gentleman who is obviously incapable of learning, changing, or dealing sensitively with the (needless) complexities of a modern pluralistic society needs a short sharp kick in the pants for all kinds of reasons. Hopefully the LSA and MEChA can provide the boot. I'd be more comfortable with this professor being removed along with his vomitous signs, seeing how likely he is to be doing academic harm to his Latino students; some outside pressure from the community is more likely to accomplish that. However it turns out, you've done good getting the ball rolling.
 
 
Red Concrete
20:52 / 01.03.07
Amen. I think you did just right. And as an academic, I completely second the view that Universities are obsessed with heirarchical bureaucracy - they have incredible inertia, but the momentum of a cold fart (although admittedly my experiences are limited to an ancient university which is probably worse than a newer one). You need to bring all kinds of pressure to overcome it - most important, probably include student organisations/papers, and the sympathies of secretaries, who hold a vast amount of power.

I think you should take it to outside newspapers, or even local politicians (I'm ignorant on whether that's worthwhile in the US?) if this person is not disciplined.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:51 / 01.03.07
You've done splendidly and rock very hard.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
22:39 / 01.03.07
gourami rocks. I think it's already been said, but so many people would just kvetch to themselves about this and not do anything. Well done for taking action.

By the way, mw and I talked a bit over PM about my request that ze take hir requests about the offensiveness elsewhere, and we resolved matters. It's all good.
 
 
Gendudehashadenough
23:04 / 01.03.07
I just want to chime in and say that what was posted on the window was appalling. Also. Does anyone agree that the fact that this notice was prompted via the irritability of the instructor while attempting to buy food at an establishment that grossly underpays it's workers, causing thea workforce of said company to be comprised of, often immigrant (legal or illegal), workers who are forced into low paying jobs only to be the sufferers of an economically oppressive situation that affects more than those post-first generation non-whites?

I mean, fuck, if you don't want people of Hispanic dissent to muff up your mathematical experience of buying food, then maybe this prick should cease to frequent businesses that allow the economic racism (+arguably contributing to lack of education in immigrant communities) to be continued.

Would I be out of line in wanting a brick to be placed through that small-office window....provided the instructor was using it? Maybe the notice would miraculously become attached to the brick, which could then be thrown through a MiccyDees window.
 
 
Red Concrete
23:19 / 01.03.07
Would I be out of line...

Man, there isn't enough love in the world as it is....
 
 
Gendudehashadenough
23:27 / 01.03.07
...Which is, surely, the reason for spreading it violently, and in the form of rodent infestations, towards the HQ of fast-food conglomerates, right? 'Cept Jackie's outfit, they don't do fake shakes...
 
 
Evil Scientist
06:33 / 02.03.07
Gourami, you are my favourite super-hero. It's official.
 
 
HCE
06:38 / 02.03.07
Thank you all again. I really appreciate all the nice comments, though to be honest, when I've been doing all this it hasn't felt good at all. There's a certain satisfaction in sticking up for what I believe is right, but talking about it really makes my heart thump. Outrage is not a pleasant sensation, and there's a good amount of fear there as well.

I spoke to an instructor who said he'd make sure that the people at the African American student center got involved as well, which was very heartening. I'm trying to take a positive view. If nothing else happens about this issue other than the signs being taken down (and the Dean whose primary interest seemed to be convincing me that it was hopeless to think anything more could be done), at least I as an individual will have made some connections with really wonderful people in the Latino student center.

This person's attempt to intimidate students has, in this case at least, had very much the opposite effect. I believe there is a relevant Alanis Morissette lyric somewhere.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:58 / 02.03.07
Does anyone agree that the fact that this notice was prompted via the irritability of the instructor while attempting to buy food at an establishment that grossly underpays it's workers, causing thea workforce of said company to be comprised of, often immigrant (legal or illegal), workers who are forced into low paying jobs only to be the sufferers of an economically oppressive situation that affects more than those post-first generation non-whites?

It doesn't really affect the situation, but it wasn't. This email is spam - it does not describe an actual experience by the instructor, nor an experience by the person who sent it to him. I doubt very much, personally, that anybody actually had the experience as described - it was made up to add a veneer of authenticity to the doctrinaire sentiment of the "joke".

Google search for "the counter girl took my $4.00

Why people clog the email accounts of their acquaintances with these false memories is one of those things about the Internet I've never really understood.

Also, of course, the joke, from a mathematical angle, doesn't make sense. The 2010 question is far harder than the 1990s question: one not only has to subtract, but then divide the result by the cost of a tortilla and round down. Since the cost of a tortilla is not given, algebra may also be involved. The instructor should be grateful that Spanish-speaking Americans appear to be demanding higher standards of mathematical learning. It also makes no sense in terms of the fake intro: surely the person who has been so terribly inconvenienced at the MacDonalds counter should be delighted to see that maths teaching is being aggressively oriented towards calculating the cost of foodstuffs, and the change left from a $20 bill?

Notwithstanding, though, yes. If you want cheap burgers, expect cheap labour. If you want cheap labour, expect people who for whatever reason cannot get better paid jobs, be that their legal status or their current language skills. California's economy is swollen by its population of both documented and undocumented immigrant workers, and guess who most of that extra money doesn't go to? You guessed it.
 
 
Triplets
08:09 / 02.03.07
I was given to understand that I had not quite understood the point. I was told that he is very old and set in his ways, and was unlikely to change his attitudes. I responded that a person unable to change the attitude that Latino students are incompetent to learn math is not qualified to teach them and should be removed.

Fuckin' A, g. You rock the boat that rocks the boat.

I can't believe the Dean's "well that's just the way things are" attitude.
 
 
Evil Scientist
08:19 / 02.03.07
I can't believe the Dean's "well that's just the way things are" attitude.

That is pretty disgusting isn't it? Some people don't seem to realise that an unwillingness to make waves causes much more trouble down the road. If the dean took this instructor aside and actually had a serious conversation with him then the situation could be resolved without damaging his college's reputation. However it now looks like the only real way to cause a change is to make the situation as public as possible.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
08:29 / 02.03.07
All power to you, gourami. What you're doing isn't easy at all, but it's admirable.
 
 
penitentvandal
09:52 / 02.03.07
It is pretty bloody shocking that the Dean thinks it's okay for the man to be racist because he's old and set in his ways. What? I can see that flying on other issues, yeah. I can see a guy in the physics department being allowed to just keep teaching students Newtonian physics because, you know, he's old and he's too set in his ways to bother with that quantum stuff. Or a guy in the Psych department claiming that intelligence is definitely genetic because he's too old and set in his ways to read the many articles criticising the data on which claims like that are based. Honestly, these people are supposed to be intelligent.

It might be worth pointing out to the dean that defending a racist can be seen, by many, as just as bad as being racist oneself.

And, to add to the chorus, well done. Of course it doesn't feel good now, conflict never does. You'll get the warm glow afterwards, eventually.

Oh, and

The people at the Latino student center told me that they had informed MEChA

The Latino students have giant robots? Fucking hell, your university is cooler than mine...
 
 
Triplets
11:34 / 02.03.07
Does this mean we should start tackling Granny's over-whelming, um, 'love' for powdering her nose? She is set in her ways...
 
 
HCE
15:53 / 30.03.07
Well, things have not really gotten very much better.

The high point was probably receiving this note:
I am responding to your e-mail sent 3/12/07 in regards to the posting of inappropriate material in the office of Professor Bowles. I have communicated with Fran Manion, Math Department Chair and she verified that all material has been removed. In addition, the Academic Senate Professional Ethics Committee will follow-up with Professor Bowles.

Santa Monica College is committed to student success and will not tolerate assertions of discrimination. We will continue to work together to ensure an environment that is positive for advancing your educational experience.

Thanks for bringing this forward,

Jeff Shimizu
Vice President Academic Affairs

I happened to run into him on campus and introduced myself, and he thanked me for bringing the matter to his attention, so that was nice.

Then the school paper produced this article, without calling me. The plus side is that I can post it here because I am not mentioned by name in the article and I am not credited on the photo, but you'll notice the down side:

Links to large images:
Page 1
Page 2

After the article came out, I was talking to my English teacher, and he said that he was discussing the matter with a colleague. He told her that the 'female student' mentioned in the article was one of his students, and his colleague was surprised to hear I'm Iranian, as she'd assumed I was a Latina. As did everybody else I spoke to about it who didn't already know.

There are a lot of other problems with the article, too.

Then I started noticing flyers advertising the public meeting. They reproduced the photo of materials on Professor Bowles' door and labeled it 'Racism on our campus!' These flyers were very widely distributed around the school.

Then came the public meeting. It was a complete disaster, and utterly disheartening. MEChA was ill-organized and ill-prepared, the Math Dept faculty circled the wagons, and a number of shouty white students said things like "My fiance is Latino, and he laughed at this!" and "That other sign isn't racist, it's about immigration!" One poor girl started her comments with, "I was raised by illegal immigrants ..." (I was wondering how this blond girl with the Valley accent got adopted) "...my nanny..." and the room collapsed into derisive laughter. She barely managed to choke out through her tears, "... and I am offended by this!" I felt sorry for her. No matter how ill-considered her phrasing, it isn't nice to keep laughing at somebody so upset she's crying.

The Dean did not appear, but a professor I'd taken a course from and liked tremendously read a statement from her, saying that the signs were not written by him but circulated widely on the internet, that he'd taken them down and apologized, and that we should move on.

Oh, and he did say he was sorry, by the way. It was a doozy of a performance. He walked up to the front of the room and sat on the edge of the desk and gave an apology of the "I'm sorry -- sorry you're hypersensitive" school. He said he was not a racist, that the flyer was just for the amusement of his colleagues, that as soon as he was informed it was hurtful he apologized and took it down, and no, he was not open to any questions. You really had to hear the tone of voice, the guy is a piece of work.

His defenders said that math education really has gone down, so the flyer is accurate, that they knew him personally and he was not a racist, and that he'd apologized, so what else did we want? One man was a Mexican student with a distinct accent who spoke very movingly of how much trouble he'd had adjusting and how much the professor had helped him.

The black students were mixed in their response, some saying that this wasn't what real racism was, and some saying that it was. No Asian students spoke while I was there (I left after an hour and a half -- I don't think the meeting went on much longer after that).

I spoke and said that there were two signs, not just the one about math, and that there was no other context, so how were people supposed to take it? I then thanked the professor for attending and apologizing, and said that what I would want to see is some evidence that he knows what it is about the signs that got people so upset. There was so little time to talk that I had to leave a lot of sheer insanity unaddressed, like the nutbar who wanted to prove that MEChA is racist by reading their charter.

Follow-up article online.

I feel as though nobody got it, a professor I like and respect is depressingly blind on this issue, and I had to thank somebody for a completely insincere 'apology' just so that nobody could say his apology wasn't acknowledged.

When I calm down enough, I am going to write to the professor I like and explain in great detail why racism isn't just something done by people with swastikas carved into their shaven heads.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:04 / 30.03.07
Thanks for this very interesting update. While I appreciate some aspects of this were frustrating for you, I still think you've done an incredible job of foregrounding this and prompting a major discussion about it, making people aware of the issue and apparently enabling others to speak out against this professor's racist attitudes.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:11 / 30.03.07
The dude looks about 106 years old, btw. Time to retire.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
16:24 / 30.03.07
Because the problem with this guy was his age?

As Wonderstar said, you did a grand job there, Gourami. Listening to the self justification is frustrating but they're only having to excuse themselves because you've called them to account. The people who weren't talking were still listening and learning, drawing their own conclusions. The spotlight has been directed on this guy's behaviour and that might not change him 100% but it's bound to improve the way he affects the people around him.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:33 / 30.03.07
Personally, I'd love the chance to go on some sensitivity training. Learning how not to upset and alienate a sector of my student body that I claim not to have racist feelings about? GREBT! Sign me up.
 
  

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