Columbia’s School of Social Work is Racist to Black Students and Faculty (Spoiler)
An Update-3/18/21:
Since my initial call out of CSSW, Dean Melissa Begg issued a non-apology, ostensibly to redo the first statement wherein she discounted what happened to me, cast doubt onto my experiences and in doing so, rather unapologetically called my reputation and character as an instructor into question. She sent an email notifying me that she was going to release this statement prior to publishing it and included it as an attachment. I responded and let her know that what she sent could not possibly be considered an apology, certainly without accountability and as cheap penance, she selected the smallest, most low-lift demands to divert attention away from CSSW’s discriminatory and retaliatory termination of my position in which she was complicit. Shortly thereafter, CSSW released incomplete Adjunct faculty demographic numbers that did not include gender and initially excluded Indigenous and API folks along with a claim that CSSW will discontinue the use of my syllabus — they have not — and that all FUTURE faculty “must be compensated appropriately for all curriculum development”. They still have not released demographic numbers of ALL staff at the School of Social Work, as was demanded. The white instructor who has been using my syllabus since Fall 2020 said she was given no such directive to stop teaching the syllabus. I have received no formal or direct notice from the University about the discontinued use of my syllabus nor compensation for the continued non consensual use of my syllabus. I suspect the DEI office or the Deans will send a reactionary email sometime shortly after this update is released as has been their pattern to disparage me privately amongst each other and respond publicly to give the illusion of transparency. Despite Dean Begg asking in her public address if I “would like to talk” to her and Dean Julien Teitler, I received no such offer in our personal correspondence and no reply to my message. I did take note of her email signature, though, which reads in bold lettering: “We at CSSW condemn anti-Black racism in all its forms and are committed not just to making statements, but to taking action.” Rich. I guess she meant the university condemns anti-Black racism they can directly profit from. I guess if you can maintain the optics of “condemning anti-Blackness, you’ll never have to actually do it.
I have been met with a great deal of support mostly from Black and NBPOC students/staff and Black adjunct faculty whose Blackness alone and disposability as at-will employees of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate has subjected them to the same racism, queerphobia, misogynoir and wage exploitation that CSSW is known for among Black and NBPOC students, staff and professors including the Black femme adjuncts who have been disregarded and also pushed out — the striking similarity between all of these terminations are the positionalities of those terminated and Monique Jethwani, Karma Lowe and Julien Teitler’s dismissals of their concerns and personhood. As a note, I have not heard from one white adjunct faculty or staff member throughout this entire experience, including Dean Julien Teitler, recipient of a seed funding grant for “projects that engage with issues of structural racism” who apologized in the February 19th meeting about me without me but later admitted that neither he, Karma Lowe nor Monique or any parties involved in pushing me out “would have done anything differently” and that “the situation was handled appropriately.” It begs the question as to what he was apologizing for.
Vapid closed-door apologies to make themselves look good aside, the institution has gone on the offense — invisibilizing what happened to me to as a “crisis and opportunity moment” from which the university can emerge triumphant and victorious in the fight against “racism and transphobia” while a nigga still out of a job and was fired by that University in the middle of a pandemic, posited as a distraction, and my firing reduced to “the whole Ericka Hart thing”. In the meeting that was called by Melissa Begg directly after she “respectfully disagreed” with my “claims” and “assertions” of anti Blackness and transphobia, a Black Associate Professor began the meeting thanking Dean Begg and for added comfort, assured her that she knew “the situation was complex.” This meeting was interrupted by students, who were tone-policed and told to act “appropriately.” Students who recorded the meeting and posted it on social media were told that what they did was wrong and asked to apologize by faculty. I began to understand how some Black faculty could sit in a meeting about a Black person that most had never met, never reached out to, never asked if they were okay, but could find the time to center themselves when their beloved institution was being taken to task for the same anti-Blackness many of them shared experiencing first hand.
In an all Black faculty meeting I attended, an associate professor expressed “needing more information about my situation” BEFORE she stood in solidarity. Dr. Desmond Patton, a tenured Professor, who right before the meeting wrote a joint email with Dean Monique Jethwani (a Dean who was directly harmful to me, who has a history of harming both Black and Non-Black POC students and staff, some of whom have also been pushed out) to the school addressing the last three of my demands, blatantly omitting the 2 of my demands, most notably the one calling for Melissa Begg, Julien Teitler and Jethwani’s own resignation. Dr. Patton offered a lukewarm apology to me for doing this, shared that “he did not feel woke enough” and despite the near impossibility of him losing his job due to tenure and that he “felt scared”. Dr. Patton then went on to gaslight Black students making them feel like they had done something wrong for calling out the school. He would then sit in another Black caucus meeting and say “I have more information about Ericka’s situation which is why I cannot say much’’, which only further discredits my experience. Karma Lowe, the director of DEI, who I did not initially call out because she is Black and I know the school will quickly dissolve her job if she were asked to resign, but keep the white and NBPOC Deans I called out, also apologized to me in that meeting, but then has gone on to tell staff members and students that I was fired because I “target cis folks” the same accusation lodged by the transphobic student who claimed to administration that I “hate men’’. In the meeting, a white professor stated, “I have not heard anything about the transphobic acts Ericka brought to light”. Kristi Stringer — there’s your proof. I have never in four years of teaching at Columbia as an out queer and nonbinary professor ever received any notice, feedback or discipline around this alleged complaint so much so that I, the same person who is said to have targeted cis students, in a school where professors are not mandated to use pronouns and students are constantly misgendered in class, was asked by Karma and Monique to offer a gender workshop for all adjunct staff at CSSW. Make this make sense.
There were some Black faculty members who said that my call-out was, “Trumpian” and that “there are better ways to handle this’’ or “Karma and Monique are my friends, I don’t believe they would ever do something like this.” Monique Jethwani and Julien Teitler have sent out emails admonishing students not to “talk about the specifics of individual incidents and instead focus on institutional change” and when offices or departments have released statements of support, Karma Lowe called it “unnecessary internal conflict”. My demands have been infiltrated to turn students against me, discourage them from organizing around any demands (not just mine, but those dating back to 2015) and the focus on student driven calls to action was turned to hurt feelings of and salary and benefits protection for key faculty. It is part of the design of how these white schools work that key Black admins and faculty would be willingly and eagerly used to defend the lie that CSSW is “condemning anti-Blackness.” My Black experience working in academia became a debatable talking point that certain Black faculty and DEI office admins could turn into their own project to forward “demands” they got “permission” to send from their white handlers. “Demands” that were created on my back. Demands that will likely never happen, but will keep white faculty comfortable and in their positions and Black folks in line. My demands and what happened to me were used to make the DEI office look like some antiracist savior, to commodify Blackness by co-opting organizing and abolitionist language or a faux Black revolutionary politic ultimately for Columbia University’s sole benefit, to forge “community” with an oppressive institution that is actively gaslighting a Black person and pushing the labor onto Black folks at the institution rather than holding Melissa Begg, Julien Teitler and Monique Jethwani to account. Instead of simply not standing in solidarity, some faculty — white, Black and non Black POC have chosen to stand in the way. It is not my hope that they stand in solidarity with me nor is the labor on Black folks to “change” the institution — it is my hope that will no longer be used pr in some cases, allow their power to be abused, to uphold CSSW’s environment of secrecy and duplicity that puts Black students and staff in harm’s way.
Susan Witte, another recipient of the aforementioned grant on structural racism and white professor of many years at CSSW sent an email in which she proceeded to say that “we are now pitting students of color against administrators of color against instructors of color” and admitted that “there are white faculty among us who have not been removed despite our own poor performance or poorly judged behavior with students” — -the same white, racist adjuncts and tenured professors and staff who have been reported for their racism whose bios are still on CSSW’s website which would still suggest they would be able to teach at the school — -whereas I have been completely removed. Susan also asked that “we dismiss any dichotomy suggesting a right or wrong side” (remember, everything is objective in white supremacy culture). But also said “….that we can do this without compromising the integrity and humanity of Professor Hart or our colleagues of color in the administration who may have been involved in the process of her dismissal.” Feels eerily similar to Trump’s quote, “very fine people on both sides” (see Charlottesville).
It’s unfortunate but the reality of this situation shows the impacts of whiteness and when we strive to be white, who we will step on to remain a token simply to make a white institution look good when they eventually release demographic numbers and you are carefully selected to silence any Black folks who are not easily satisfied or appeased.
If you are wondering about the legal aspect, I never assumed I would receive any consequence or semblance of justice via legal means. It oftentimes does not lead to justice but rather to paid silence. The letter of law when it comes to race and gender discrimination requires proof and the burden of proof is on the harmed. As you know, racism, transphobia and homophobia is sometimes incredibly subtle — -while what happened to me was not, you can infer that Columbia University is using the full force of the institution and the power of whiteness vested in it to make legal recourse all the more difficult and nearly financially impossible. If you are also being targeted by a racist or otherwise oppressive institution, non-profit, job, org, you will need to have named the harm explicitly in writing, even if in naming it to the people doing it to you could also get you fired or bring you more harm.
It’s important to understand that our legal system of unjust works to support institutions, not individuals and most employment laws are designed to protect the employer, not the employee so you can likely infer what my experience has been coming up against Columbia University, a 15 billion dollar institution that pays adjuncts as little as $200 a week, founded on slave labor and genocide and that Columbia University’s legal team didn’t get the memo on the antiracism workshop or the cool, new DEI projects on the website.
My demands still stand even if I stand alone. They are demands for a reason. You cannot terminate and push out a Black person for speaking out against anti-Blackness from students AND administration and expect to create an environment of accountability, healing or whatever flowery language CSSW would like to use.
Initial Statement, 2/18/21:
I’ve talked about this situation for awhile, I’ve cried about it, initially thought it might be better handled by administration but what they’ve done instead is attempt to silence me, push me out quietly, effectively blackball and punish me for being unwilling to teach a gender course from an apolitical basis or hide the fact that I’m queer and non-binary and ultimately for speaking out against an anti-black, transphobic student who tried to intimidate me inside and outside of the class. When I brought these issues to all levels of administration, I was warned by one dean not to complain about the student as she feared that they would counter with their own complaint purely out of spite (which I didn’t realize was a common practice weaponized mostly against Black professors there). When I escalated the issue to the upper level admins, I was gaslit, told I was the problem, and when I filed a complaint about those deans, to their direct supervisors, I was told, curtly, that they “considered the matter resolved.”
After 4 years of continuous teaching assignments at the University, I emailed CSSW asking why I hadn’t been invited back to teach despite my class being offered on the website and office managers who were normally friendly suddenly turned cold, first telling me it was “due to Covid-19 budget cuts for Fall 2020” and then saying, they didn’t know why and had no “further information” (please note, there was no change in tuition for students during the pandemic or any discernible decrease in faculty. My class was still being offered — this time being taught by a newly hired white cisgender professor who is using the syllabus I created). I contacted 5 different lawyers but because I grossed a whopping $12k a year as an adjunct, I was told that it wasn’t enough of a loss of monetary damages for those firms to take on my case even after they conceded that my case was compelling which speaks volumes to why adjuncts are not paid a livable wage (if you do have any issues with your labor being exploited by the institution, you won’t have enough money to even pay a lawyer to fight a “huge machine like Columbia” — the former was quoted by another lawyer).
Adjuncts do not have a secure teaching position at any university but adjuncts that have been at Columbia for 10 years have never had their pictures removed from the website taken off but both my name and picture have been. My emails have also been removed from the server without any notification as to why yet my syllabus continues to be used.
When you experience racism, it’s incredibly exhausting and you lose complete hope that anything will happen. Racism takes a physical toll on the body but don’t discount the emotional and psychological exhaustion that comes with territory.
What are the protections for adjunct professors who experience racism? This isn’t the first time and I’m not the only one (I’m 1 of 10 Black adjuncts at CSSW and I’m 1 of only 3 Black, queer and non-binary adjuncts out of we don’t know how many white because they won’t release the numbers — I’ve asked). There have been blatantly racist faculty that met no real consequences and very little reprimand for their anti blackness. White deans do nothing, white instructors and fellow adjuncts do nothing despite releasing a bogus values statement in June 2020 following last summer’s protest, where Deans Monique Jethwani, Julien Teitler and Melissa Begg signed their names below a letter “condemning anti black racism.” Chattel slavery and gentrification has the building stand and they don’t care and I knew that when I started working there and it still doesn’t make it okay that it happens to any of us.
Folks have been asking how to support: if you want to support you can…
⁃ Email the Deans of the School of Social Work
⁃ Share this
⁃ If you work at school or are a student currently, get interested in how many Black professors have tenure/are currently working there/what their experiences are like and advocate for them.
Demands:
I don’t want my job back. I don’t want them to use my syllabus anymore. I want the Deans to be held to account for the harm they caused, to publicly admit and acknowledge what they did, to release the “diversity” numbers/demographic information
⁃ To not racism happen to any Black professor at that school ever again
