From the letter: We are writing this letter as concerned and committed University of Oregon faculty members. Our purpose for writing this letter is to voice our support for the UO Diversity Plan. We believe strongly that a University Diversity Plan is critical to moving our University forward with recruiting and retaining faculty, staff, and students of non-majority groups, enhancing the diversity and quality of our University community, and improving the scholarship, teaching, and service we provide to our respective academic, local, national, and international communities.
You mention quality. So do we understand correctly that you would like to join other concerned and committed faculty members who expressed their concern that the word quality appears on the 46 pages of Diversity Plan only once?
From the letter: We believe in an inclusive and broad definition of diversity. We support the current description of diversity in the UO Diversity Plan, which includes diversity dimensions related to ethnicity/race, nationality, linguistics, sexual orientation, gender/sex, physical ability, religion, age, etc.
We think our colleagues forgot something. The Plan also includes diversity of political affiliation and belief. Since your letter is written `to voice the support' for the diversity plan, do we understand correctly that you also support this part of the plan, and if so, why do you drop it when you cite the broad definition of diversity?
From the letter: We support a Plan that creates unique and innovative change strategies that match the needs of each minority group and the specific types of oppression that each group experiences. Achieving these diverse goals need not be a competitive process. The Plan is also important because it attempts to set an agenda for building a better UO community that is better able to respond to Oregon's future given the demographic trends that are currently affecting and that will continue to affect the state of Oregon.
Very well. So we all want a plan which is effective. Therefore you would agree that if, say, in the next year we spend more on diversity than in the previous year but have less diversity than before, then we will need to learn from that and do something differently. But how will we know this if the financial transparency and accountability is not mentioned in the Plan? Do we understand correctly that you would like to join us in proposing that such accountability and transparency should be put in?
You also wisely mention oppression that each group experiences. So if the ratio of Republicans to Democrats among the university professors is 1:15, you would surely support us in suggesting that this is one of the areas where the university is doing especially badly, and that we should stop the oppression here immediately? As for the demographic trends, the ratio of the republicans in the state has been remarkably stable in the last 50 years, and yet the university is doing worse and worse in this respect...
From the letter: We would additionally like to respond to and communicate our disagreement with some of our UO colleagues' comments regarding the `illogic and immorality' of the UO Diversity Plan and to address some of our colleagues' comments at the Diversity Plan open forum meetings (printed in the The Daily Emerald article titled, `Community reacts to diversity plan' [May 1, 2006 issue]).
It looks like our colleagues have not gone to the meeting themselves but judge about what happened by the Emerald article. We suggest that to better understand our position you read the Comments on `DIVERSITY PLAN FOR UO' where our concerns are carefully spelled out. For example, we never use the word illogic although we do use logic! The Emerald article also uses the word logistics. Could that be a source of confusion?
As for immorality, neither immorality nor morality has ever been used. Check for yourselves! This is the word used only by the Emerald reporter.
From the letter: At this open forum meeting, two professors suggested that race/ethnicity should not matter when hiring faculty and that to consider race/ethnicity actually hurts ethnic minority faculty because ethnic/racial minority faculty will walk around campus feeling like they didn't earn the job on their own merits and other faculty will doubt their competence. The presumptive nature of this statement is profoundly disturbing on at least two levels. First, these faculty members presume to know what ethnic minority faculty members think and feel. Second, they assume that ethnic minority faculty members feel `less than' White (and implied in his statement - more qualified) faculty members. For decades, ethnic minority faculty members have experienced being questioned about their competencies and judged as to the merits of their hires. This is not new! Faculty vitriol against the consideration of ethnicity and race in any hire may come from those who have never been questioned or doubted due to any aspect of their identity, or underappreciated and devalued for the diverse/non-majority experiences they may offer. Statements such as these from our faculty colleagues directly imply that hiring competent, gifted, and promising scholars and hiring ethnic minority scholars are mutually exclusive. This is both insulting and untrue.
Well, as our colleagues would say, this passage is `profoundly disturbing on at least two levels'. First, imagine the following SAT question (comprehension part):
|
In the 1950-1980 anti-semitism was a semi-official
policy of the
Soviet authorities. Jews would not be accepted to certain jobs and strict
quotas were enforced in the most prestigious universities in the USSR.
Many non-Jews were uncomfortable with this policy and privately
opposed to it, although very few
people dared to challenge it openly. Those who did would usually get long
prison sentences.
What is the main idea of the passage? Choose the best answer: (a) The author describes anti-semitism as a form of discrimination and oppression. (b) The author presumes to know what non-Jews thought and felt. (c) Being non-Jew and a promising scholar are mutually exclusive. (d) There were not enough qualified non-Jews for certain jobs. (d) Certain non-Jews were questioned or doubted due to any aspect of their identity. (f) Non-Jewish faculty members felt `less than' Jewish (and implied in the statement - more qualified) faculty members. |
Unbelievably, the authors of the letter seem to choose (b), (c), (d), (e), and (f) as correct answers...
Next, the statement that `race/ethnicity should not matter when hiring faculty' is far from controversial. It is rather amazing that our colleagues believe it is. Would they like to argue with "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."? Is Martin Luther King, Jr. also controversial for our colleagues?
From the letter: This and other blatantly discriminatory and insulting comments expressed in public forums point to the fact that some of our faculty colleagues do not believe they have been insulting. Some of our colleagues appear to be very offended, not only by feedback about issues of human diversity, but by the fact that the University, through its Diversity Plan, should even attempt to establish a mechanism to provide such feedback. We believe that faculty members who are expressing their disagreement with the Plan in this way do not see themselves as biased or offensive. We personally know, and in some cases are friends with, colleagues who do not support the UO Diversity Plan. We value dialogue and disagreement, but we cannot condone disrespectful, insulting, and hurtful interactions.
From the very beginning, our goal has been to bring clarity and logic to the discussion. We want rational thinking, not emotions. Some people warned us that as soon as we begin to win the debate, we will be just called racists and that will be that. We guess this has happened now. However, we will not respond to insults with insults, and we will continue to work quietly and tirelessly on improving the university Diversity Plan and the broad diversity situation at the University of Oregon. We have nothing to hide. We are open to debate. We would be happy to discuss our positions in any open forum, and will keep doing this. One thing will not happen---we will not go silent.
From the letter: At the recent open forum, for example, one student of color spoke about feeling fearful and threatened at times on campus. A group of UO faculty members actually laughed out-loud at this student. This does not suggest lack of awareness but, instead, complete insensitivity to the experiences of others and in particular to a student of color. This behavior itself is precisely why the Diversity Plan which at its core targets increasing awareness, sensitivity, and competence is needed.
Allow us to tell a Russian joke. Two friends meet. One says: ``I hear that plumber Ivanov has won 5 roubles in lottery." The second friend: "Well, you heard it almost right, except that 1). it was not plumber but engineer, 2). not Ivanov but Rabinovich, 3). not in lottery, but in cards, 4). not 5 but 100 roubles, and 5). not won but lost."
So our colleagues have heard it almost right, but: 1). There were two students who spoke in the last public forum. 2). The first student spoke as a member of the diversity committee working on the plan. He looked like a student of Asian descent. As a member of the committee he was not speaking about his own experiences and did not claim that he himself was fearful or threatened. He said that in his opinion diversity was a matter of safety, because some minority students might not feel safe in a school with a small number of minority professors. 3). Nobody laughed at the student, nobody laughed during or after the student spoke. One faculty member responded to these comments, and has actually reinforced them, saying that perhaps conservative students also might not feel safe in a school where great majority of professors are very liberal and show it in class. 4). The second student did not speak about `feeling fearful and threatened' either. Rather he said that he felt that some students need to be better educated since they don't know how to communicate with minority students. The student also suggested that the ways one should communicate with minority students and non-minority students are different. 5). Nobody laughed at the student, nobody laughed during or after the student spoke. After the student finished, one of the faculty members respectfully questioned the idea that there should be different ways to communicate with minority students and non-minority students. While this is a point two clever people might disagree about, there was absolutely nothing controversial or confrontational in both dialogues.
From the letter: We understand the serious challenges faced by members of the UO Diversity Planning committee. We wish to thank you for your work. And, we clearly state our support for the process, completion, and adoption by the university community of the UO Diversity Plan that you are working diligently and conscientiously to create.
We also understand serious challenges, and we have thanked the members of the committee in writing before. As for the support for the process, we more than support it, we participate in it. For example, we came to the open forums and voiced our concerns, as invited by the members of the diversity committee and the president. Unfortunately, our opponents chose not to participate in the forums or at least kept quiet. But it is never too late to start a rational dialogue---this is the only way to find a common ground and move forward.
Alexander Kleshchev, Mathematics