Reactions to Campus Bias Incidents

The hanging of a noose in Teachers College cannot fail to offend the collective sensibilities of the University community. Here we are at a prestigious institution that preaches tolerance and diversity. Surely, nothing of this sort should happen. Yet it does, and has, repeatedly over the past years. From the Ruggles incident a couple of years back to this most recent travesty, it would seem that the outgrowth of hate is not something new to the campus at all. We are outraged. And we are right to be outraged because this is a community, and an assault against the members of one community is an assault to the entire community.
I don’t seek to contest such claims, and in fact I agree wholeheartedly. But I find the reactions to such incidents to be unsound. Calls for administrative action seem, at best, a vain hope for the impossible. No matter how much we wish, hatred and bigotry will exist on campus and elsewhere because of one simple fact: we are a diverse community. Members of our community come from all sorts of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and upbringings. The ultimate form of diversity, however, is individual diversity, the beliefs and manners that a single person brings to the community at large. In the face of this reality, it must be stated that every barrel has some bad apples. Some members of the community simply don’t care what the rest of us think and feel, or even that they are members of the community at all. So long as people are people, this problem seems unlikely to vanish, or even improve, no matter what the administration does about it.
I completely support showing solidarity. I think that’s the least we can do. But protests against “racism”, “hate”, and other abstract concepts, no matter how material their consequences, will do little to rectify the issue at hand. We may get an extra diversity workshop or that multicultural curriculum that we’ve just been wishing so hard for, but really, this will accomplish little. If the purveyors of hate are the problem, then one must address the problem instead of working around it. What would revamping the curriculum accomplish but to infuriate the transgressors? Gathering up everybody who already agrees with you and nodding your heads in collective agreement and group affirmation simply won’t do anything productive as far as addressing the problem, and may, in fact, make it worse. Community action against hate pushes bigots into a corner, and when too much pressure is applied, aggression is likely to result. Even worse are the suggestions of more aggressive protest. Running into a human wall one morning when I’m in a hurry might not make me more sympathetic to anything protesters are saying. Moreover, there is a perverse sense of justification for the perpetrators: “I’m getting to them.”
The real way forward—maybe the only way—is engagement. I don’t mean the administration and various student groups hosting panels and speakers and forums. By this I mean everyday, basic interactions with our peers and teachers. A little pat on the back, an attentive ear, and sometimes, just saying “Hey man, that’s not cool.” The only way to really, truly change a community, is to change the people within that community. For the next however many years, we do live here, and our experiences and interactions do change us. Sometimes it is for the better, sometimes for the worse. But we must make it for the better. We can’t rely on our administration and organizations to change anything. Authentic change must occur between people, and in people.

Osarimabo Imoisili, CC ’10

The recent blatant act of racism involving a noose hung on a black professor’s door has not gone unnoticed here at Columbia University. The president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, has already issued a statement denouncing the bigoted act. Ironically, President Bollinger, only a few weeks ago, approved the invitation to bring a noose to his own campus, the president of Iran. Why didn’t President Bollinger go from door to door and hang a noose on every homosexual and Jewish person’s door instead?

Isaac Chinitz, CC ’08

Two weeks ago, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a dangerous leader and infamous bigot, came to speak at Columbia. The invitation was heralded by this University as a sign of our tolerance. Recently, another bigot, this time anonymous, expressed his/her own racist views by hanging a noose on a black professor’s door. E-mails and announcements have gone out since, in which the University has asserted that it does not tolerate this kind of expression. I believe both the Ahmadinejad invitation and the noose-hanging were wrong, and I support the protesters of both incidents. But why is one framed so differently than the other—one was a sign of our tolerance in the name of free speech, while one is a sign of our intolerance of racism? Did anyone care how students were hurt by Ahmadinejad’s comments, or by his mere presence? When a man who helps kill U.S. soldiers, threatens war and genocide, and denies the Holocaust is a guest speaker at one’s own university, it inflicts as much pain and fear upon many of us as does a noose on a door. The noose incident should remind us that when dealing with extreme hate and bigotry, intolerance is actually the morally superior response and is in itself a manifestation of our values. We should not have tolerated Ahmadinejad anymore than the noose hanging.

Ruven Ellberger, CC ’05

If the “Noose Left On Door of Black Professor” (Oct. 9) was correct—that there was a noose hung from the door of an African American teacher at Teachers College—then calling this a “Bias Incident” is at best misleading and at worst indefensible.
What exactly is the “bias” that you are making reference to? Why couch criticism of this event in such vague, empty language? Bias, the word itself, is probably more appropriate for things like private feelings, or the ways in which institutions treat members of different groups. This, on the other hand, is a very public display of violent bigotry made by a private individual(s).
This is a case of racism, which exploits one of the ugliest symbols of racism ever. A noose hanging from a black teacher’s door is not a sign of “bias” (though naming it that way might indeed be biased)—it is a sign of racism. It seems that someone like you would be well versed in the nuances of words; isn’t that what’s taught in law schools? Why not be straight about this? It would do all of us some good.

Matt Waters, GSAS

I am teaching a class on the Harlem Renaissance right now; the time of the early literary/cultural Harlem renaissance was the time in which the NAACP was waging its famous anti-lynching campaign, working on anti-lynching legislation, and raising awareness about these unprosecuted racial crimes that threatened principles of democracy and decency. The day after a black person was lynched (or the lynching was reported) in America, the NAACP hung a banner outside of its Fifth Avenue office with the very simple statement, “A man was lynched yesterday.” The NAACP’s work was in concert with the activism of a number of black and southern women, the most famous of whom was Ida B. Wells. It seems incredible to me that nearly a 100 years later, we in the Columbia community are being forced, perhaps by one of our own, to revisit this particular racist policy, in a symbolic form. I don’t find the fact that a professor was targeted as the most upsetting part of this incident—rather, I am upset that we still live in a local and national environment in which such a symbolic act—a small twisted piece of rope on an office door—is still possible and carries with it such intimidating force. As I see it, the only way for the Columbia community to deal effectively with this incident is for us to:
1) have a better sense of history, to teach in both formal and informal ways the history of racism and injustice in its myriad forms and the ways in which it is resisted and survived, and
2) to address in a meaningful way the racial climate on campus—this would mean taking the discussion way beyond black and white, toward an understanding of how tensions between racial groups and between religious groups are now being inflected by each other.
This incident at Teachers College and the recent graffiti at the School of International and Public Affairs tell us that we need that discussion. As an intellectual community, I believe that we need to address actively the retrogressive, Manichean rhetoric in which these issues and incidents are often discussed.

Monica Miller
The author is a professor of English at Barnard College.

If anything, the outrage that students have demonstrated in response to the Teachers College incident has been an illustration of how racism is far from characteristic of Columbia’s campus. In light of this fact, allegations that Columbia is “hostile to students of color” should be seen as little more than attempts by individuals to further their own personal political agendas. We can see proof of this in claims that Columbia should focus on making the Core Curriculum more culturally diverse and should also retool its plans for the Manhattanville expansion. Concerns such as these—while valid as points of intellectual discussion—are not relevant to the bias incident. What happened at Teachers College was an act of hate, and the appropriate response should be for the police to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrator. Using the bias incident to shift the University’s attention to issues only tangentially related to racism smacks of political opportunism, and arguably detracts from the seriousness of the action itself.

Jon Hollander, CC ’10

I too am saddened by the recent string of incidents that have occurred on campus. But, as a student who has been the victim of harassment at Columbia by another student, I am more concerned with the unwillingness of administrators to follow protocol in resolving such matters.
Sixteen months ago, I informed Campus Security, the Ombuds Office, the deans of Columbia College, the Chaplain’s Office, and the School of General Studies that I received threatening e-mails, was verbally harassed, and was subject of a malicious and unsubstantiated complaint filed with Campus Security. To date, the matter has not been properly addressed or resolved. When voicing my concerns, I revealed that my harasser has a history of acts that are both contrary to school policy and the law. Such behavior was evidenced when this student harassed a girl in the Carman residence hall, compelling her to move out of her dorm room. Sadly and inexplicably, the student remains in good standing with the University. Accordingly, I was compelled, out of fear, to take a leave of absence from my studies for one year. I was likewise compelled to change majors, for we were both pursuing degrees in the same department. As a result, my graduation has been postponed by two years, and I will exceed the number of credits needed to graduate. Columbia’s inability to resolve this matter in accordance with policy has created an undue burden in both time and money at my expense.
Moreover, Columbia created an atmosphere of intimidation and retaliation when informing me that if I continued pursuing filing an official complaint against my harasser, my “status as a student would be in jeopardy.” Similarly, the deans of Columbia College have thus far refused to meet with me, and have had the audacity to claim that I harassed them when calling to schedule an appointment in hopes of resolution. Incredulously, Columbia College prohibited any attempt to resolve this matter amicably and equitably through mediation. The school has also denied me access to student records as guaranteed under FERPA, a federal law.
Currently, I am awaiting a response regarding a meeting from Susan Glancy, chief of staff, in hopes of resolving this matter. My request was placed 10 months ago, and subsequent requests have fallen on deaf ears. The excuses that Ms. Glancy’s office have offered me as to her unavailability are transparent and embarrassing. Until all matters of harassment and violence are seriously contended with by this administration, and until the policies of this school are applied evenly, the dignity and respect of each individual member of our community remains in jeopardy.

Paul Farinella, GS