Wow. That was an absolutely crazy read. I don't know if it's the author having a bias, but here is my initial (not particularly careful) read, leaving out a lot of detail: A kind of weird (white)...
Wow. That was an absolutely crazy read. I don't know if it's the author having a bias, but here is my initial (not particularly careful) read, leaving out a lot of detail:
A kind of weird (white) man became department chair of the English department of Pomona, and established a funding procedure that was a bit too stiff, and also had an interest in teaching a class his (black woman) colleague found offensive, and that intruded on her area of expertise. When he attempted to propose that class, she objected and their friendship ended.
From there, that collegue, after being a victim of the stiff funding procedure, accused the chair of racism, and not just minor racism, but serious, nasty accusations. That the department chair had been racist to his colleague was sustained by the college after the colleague's complaint, but that was then overturned by a judge after a 2 year trial.
At the time the colleague's complaint was being built (and she was on medical leave from the stress), the department chair also put forward a modified version of the course that had offended the colleague, which inflamed things even more.
Finally, after the court case resolved, the chair had the documents made public, and is now writing a (poorly pseudonymed ) substack essay series on his experience
My fastest opinion is that the department chair is clearly very lacking in social skills, but that he doesn't come across (through the lens of the article author) as racist. My second is that the colleague's reactions matches up with my personal experience that there are some people who will take the actions or mistakes of someone with poor social skills (in this case, blindly following procedure) as an attack on them personally.
But man, what a dysfunctional group of people. If anyone has context to explain why the course proposal (particularly the second one) comes across as racist, I did have some trouble following that part, since I'm not familiar with The Invisible Man.
So I don't have experience with the invisible man specifically but this guy specializes in medieval works. He's hired instead of someone who specializes in American literature, which these two...
If anyone has context to explain why the course proposal (particularly the second one) comes across as racist, I did have some trouble following that part, since I'm not familiar with The Invisible Man.
So I don't have experience with the invisible man specifically but this guy specializes in medieval works. He's hired instead of someone who specializes in American literature, which these two former colleagues had wanted instead. (Note one has retired as an emeritus and one is a full professor elsewhere so they're in good academic standing as things go.)
So he proposes a seminar on a piece of American literature. And frames that work and the author in contrast with Black authors of the Harlem Renaissance. Their argument is that he's not a specialist in the area - the time frame, the author, the work, the other authors he's discussing and at a minimum shouldn't be the point instructor for a class like that. Especially when you have at least two specialists, one of whom has published on the topic. They allege the framing he described was removing race from the work. He denies that. I'm not able to determine that.
Small correction: he filed the entire administrative record of the situation publicly during the court case, not after. Should the court have found evidence in favour of the accusations and/or...
Finally, after the court case resolved, the chair had the documents made public
Small correction: he filed the entire administrative record of the situation publicly during the court case, not after. Should the court have found evidence in favour of the accusations and/or ruled against him, those documents would have still be publicly available for everyone to see.
Not a particularly nice thing to do in regards to ones colleagues, and I'm sure he wouldn't have done it if he thought there was any evidence against him to be found, but he was well within his rights to do so.
Incredible read. Started off understanding of all parties. I can see why Thomas and Tompkins initially felt disrespected, although my line would be that Ellison should not be off-limits for...
Exemplary
Incredible read. Started off understanding of all parties. I can see why Thomas and Tompkins initially felt disrespected, although my line would be that Ellison should not be off-limits for teaching by non-Thomas/non-Tompkins, but still Kunin could have approached them first to talk. The colleagues actually seem to be either pro-Kunin or at least not pro-Thomas/Tompkins in the beginning/middle of the drama. By the time they're not pro-Kunin, the vibe is that it's because they would rather get over the drama rather than that they think Thomas/Tompkins are actually victims.
Kunin is described as socially awkward in comments here, and I can see how that might be interpreted. Surely, if he had just swept the Ellison topic under the rug, it might never have blown up to this point. But this is after a long period of time where Thomas/Tompkins were pushing his buttons on top of denying him the right to teach about a Black author. An academic like him would chafe at that kind of racial segregation. Pushing his buttons include making comments about him retaliating by.. enforcing department rules on how department funds are spent. An investigator that agreed with Thomas/Tompkins on that, but a judge later pointed out that the investigator used an example that was literally the opposite of what happened. Or retaliating like
Thomas accused Kunin of scheduling the meeting “at the exact hour my guest lecturer is giving a talk.” The department met at the same time on the same day every two weeks. The schedule was sent out in August.
That grinds a person down. Or how about this interaction?
At one point, Thomas asked Kunin if she could use the department credit card to take visitors to her AfroFuturisms class to dinner. Kunin told her in an email that he had not ordered a card in his name because he didn’t want the hassle and it seemed “too easy to abuse.” But yes, Thomas should take her visitors to dinner, and the department would reimburse it, Kunin wrote. Thomas bristled. She questioned why Kunin would “automatically assume I have the money to take anybody anywhere? I am not in the same social class as the majority of white people on this campus or in this neighborhood or in this department. So. I encourage you to take a step back on that one real quick, as in everyone is not cookie cutter, even in this department — at least I’m not.”
r/Professors points out that she would have been making at least $160K per year, as she puts down Kunin multiple times for how much more junior he is to her. She'd been at Pomona for decades, so she wouldn't be making the average. Even if she is not in a position to front money for dinner for reimbursement later, who talks like this to their colleague? She could have just said "I don't have the ability to cover dinner and either we find a another way to do so or we cannot do the dinner" or something to that effect. For someone who was outraged(!) over him wanting to teach a class without her approval first (a nice informality, but not required), she did not respond with any grace there herself.
By the end, I actively disliked Thomas/Tompkins, understood Kunin and rest of colleagues, even if I don't agree that all actions played out "optimally" in terms of harmony. But that's Kunin's right.
P.S. Rolled my eyes at the request from Thomas to have $2400 reimbursed for "Innerlight Method training", which Google says is "a groundbreaking energy therapy system for intuitive and highly sensitive adults and children".
Kunin didn’t remember Thomas bringing up Innerlight Method training. When Thomas told him the meeting at which it was discussed, Kunin looked at the minutes. Thomas had taken them, and there was no mention of it. (After Kunin noted that to Thomas, she told him she was dealing with a torn ligament in her right hand at the time, so she “should not have been taking minutes at all but did it to support you as chair and to be a ‘team player,’ and may have missed reporting the dismissiveness with which my request for the course support was not addressed.”)
After reading the article, I was so tempted to simply comment the following with no further context and then sit back to watch the fireworks: “I guess it is true what people say: when all you’ve...
After reading the article, I was so tempted to simply comment the following with no further context and then sit back to watch the fireworks:
“I guess it is true what people say: when all you’ve known is privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
If I were still on Reddit, I probably would have. But thankfully tildes values honest discussion over (not so witty) quips, so here is my take on the situation:
This is the type of story I like to call “one side offers accusations, the other presents evidence.”
There's no doubt that there are plenty of ways the chair could have handled the situation more gracefully, but the reactions and accusations of the two faculty members in question are just utterly ridiculous.
They come across as being so used to getting their way and being unchallenged/unaccountable that the smallest amount of oversight and responsibility caused them to cry bloody murder.
I agree with the judges findings: the chair was pretty strict in following the rules, but that doesn't mean he was being either retaliatory or discriminatory.
Honestly, this part is to me the most telling:
They thought Kunin [...] should have asked their permission before putting [his proposal for a seminar on Ellison] forward.
I find it rather ridiculous to demand a colleague to ask permission before they can even propose a seminar they want to teach.
Man, so much of this reminded me of the shit I'd see blasted over the faculty/grad list servs when I was in grad school in an English department. It's hard to say if anyone was right in this...
Man, so much of this reminded me of the shit I'd see blasted over the faculty/grad list servs when I was in grad school in an English department.
It's hard to say if anyone was right in this situation. No one on the one side of the argument wanted to speak on the subject on the record, so so much of what's covered is pieced together from available records, and then there's the former chair himself, who can't be seen as an objective source.
I think that the chair has poor interpersonal skills which frankly isn't that surprising to me based on my own experiences in English departments, but it also seemed like the other two primary figures in the story had personal issues with him which they let spill out into every interaction with him.
I don't know if the classes he wanted to teach were racist or even antagonistic, but considering some of his allies even tried to talk him out of it the second time suggests to me there's some additional context we may be missing.
Edit: thinking back over my last point, I'm guessing there's some aspect to this where people just wanted to move past it all and they saw him continuing to press the subject of teaching the class as digging in. Which it absolutely is, but caving would also not be facing the root of the problems in the department, either.
There is something to say for the fact that "no one" talked to this guy about their problems with him. That usually results, in my experience, from those conversations having been had previously...
There is something to say for the fact that "no one" talked to this guy about their problems with him. That usually results, in my experience, from those conversations having been had previously and then not being productive/the people not feeling heard/change never happening. Especially when even his allies are like "dude stop."
He brings back memories of some of the worst professors and coworkers I've had though so I'll admit to a really biased POV coming out here.
But that's not true, is it? He did meet with at least one of the two main subjects about this, prior to becoming chair: Clearly this didn't mend the fences like he believed, but he was confronted...
But that's not true, is it? He did meet with at least one of the two main subjects about this, prior to becoming chair:
In the aftermath, Kunin tried repairing his relationship with Thomas. He told her he meant no disrespect by proposing his course, apologized for not knowing about her Ellison article, and asked her to meet. She agreed, and according to Kunin, they patched things up. In the spring, he asked Thomas to meet again because he was planning on teaching a lower-level course on Ellison and blues music. “I would love to hear about your approach to studying and teaching Ellison if you would be willing to share your expertise,” he wrote to her in an email. They grabbed a bite, and afterward, Thomas lent him some books.
Clearly this didn't mend the fences like he believed, but he was confronted by them, offered to meet to discuss, and then met again later on to continue the discussion.
He claimed they didn't come and talk to him about their problems with him. When that happens, in my experience it's because it's an unproductive conversation. In this, he reached out afterwards...
He claimed they didn't come and talk to him about their problems with him. When that happens, in my experience it's because it's an unproductive conversation. In this, he reached out afterwards and at least says he thought they'd mended fences. But his comment elsewhere in the article was that they didn't come talk to him directly.
We only have his perspective, but I don't think he's a reliable narrator. To her, she might have felt like his second proposal proved her frustration as valid and she responded with a bunch of "educate yourself" material.
I think it's telling who is willing to talk and that no one else wants sucked back into this. But once again, I'm fully biased.
Yeah i have my best grasp at being unbiased in the explainer about the academic portion of the thing. Otherwise this guy rubs me the wrong way, and it does make things toxic for everyone else....
Yeah i have my best grasp at being unbiased in the explainer about the academic portion of the thing.
Otherwise this guy rubs me the wrong way, and it does make things toxic for everyone else. I've had direct conversations with one example, had them get deflected/negated, been (poorly) set up to fail, had everything undermined and had them go around me to my boss not with legitimate concerns but with a "parent said no, other parent will say yes" attitude (other parent did not) .
I guarantee they'd say they're not being told about the concerns directly. And I caught myself bitching about them to too many equally frustrated people which was also toxic vibes. So, at some point it's a personal dislike too, even though it didn't start there.
There's something extra spectacular and messy about college administrative drama. My undergraduate program's director was accused of sexual harassment by several female students. When he was...
There's something extra spectacular and messy about college administrative drama.
My undergraduate program's director was accused of sexual harassment by several female students. When he was fired, he allegedly fled with a bunch of records. Staff payroll was messed up for a month or two. The assistant director had been unhealthy for a while and descending into senility. The graduate program's admins had to step in to administer the undergraduate program until replacements for both directors could be found.
This all went down a year or two after I graduated, and I found out about it from old classmates who stuck around for the graduate program.
Like... he just took them for the sake of messing up admin? That is so petty. :'D I don't understand where people find the energy to stir up so much shit, life's tiring enough as it is.
fled with a bunch of records.
Like... he just took them for the sake of messing up admin? That is so petty. :'D
I don't understand where people find the energy to stir up so much shit, life's tiring enough as it is.
I always think of Sayre's Law: I think that while in the corporate world crazy stuff does happen, people can easily just find another job in a sea of jobs. But academia is small and underpaid, so...
"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."
I think that while in the corporate world crazy stuff does happen, people can easily just find another job in a sea of jobs. But academia is small and underpaid, so everything is intensely personal, so when things get crazy, they get intensely crazy. >:D
If you’re getting fired anyway, may as well leave a mess. If you’re lucky, the whole place will collapse and you’ll put your former colleagues out of a job, too.
If you’re getting fired anyway, may as well leave a mess. If you’re lucky, the whole place will collapse and you’ll put your former colleagues out of a job, too.
Wow. That was an absolutely crazy read. I don't know if it's the author having a bias, but here is my initial (not particularly careful) read, leaving out a lot of detail:
A kind of weird (white) man became department chair of the English department of Pomona, and established a funding procedure that was a bit too stiff, and also had an interest in teaching a class his (black woman) colleague found offensive, and that intruded on her area of expertise. When he attempted to propose that class, she objected and their friendship ended.
From there, that collegue, after being a victim of the stiff funding procedure, accused the chair of racism, and not just minor racism, but serious, nasty accusations. That the department chair had been racist to his colleague was sustained by the college after the colleague's complaint, but that was then overturned by a judge after a 2 year trial.
At the time the colleague's complaint was being built (and she was on medical leave from the stress), the department chair also put forward a modified version of the course that had offended the colleague, which inflamed things even more.
Finally, after the court case resolved, the chair had the documents made public, and is now writing a (poorly pseudonymed ) substack essay series on his experience
My fastest opinion is that the department chair is clearly very lacking in social skills, but that he doesn't come across (through the lens of the article author) as racist. My second is that the colleague's reactions matches up with my personal experience that there are some people who will take the actions or mistakes of someone with poor social skills (in this case, blindly following procedure) as an attack on them personally.
But man, what a dysfunctional group of people. If anyone has context to explain why the course proposal (particularly the second one) comes across as racist, I did have some trouble following that part, since I'm not familiar with The Invisible Man.
So I don't have experience with the invisible man specifically but this guy specializes in medieval works. He's hired instead of someone who specializes in American literature, which these two former colleagues had wanted instead. (Note one has retired as an emeritus and one is a full professor elsewhere so they're in good academic standing as things go.)
So he proposes a seminar on a piece of American literature. And frames that work and the author in contrast with Black authors of the Harlem Renaissance. Their argument is that he's not a specialist in the area - the time frame, the author, the work, the other authors he's discussing and at a minimum shouldn't be the point instructor for a class like that. Especially when you have at least two specialists, one of whom has published on the topic. They allege the framing he described was removing race from the work. He denies that. I'm not able to determine that.
Small correction: he filed the entire administrative record of the situation publicly during the court case, not after. Should the court have found evidence in favour of the accusations and/or ruled against him, those documents would have still be publicly available for everyone to see.
Not a particularly nice thing to do in regards to ones colleagues, and I'm sure he wouldn't have done it if he thought there was any evidence against him to be found, but he was well within his rights to do so.
Incredible read. Started off understanding of all parties. I can see why Thomas and Tompkins initially felt disrespected, although my line would be that Ellison should not be off-limits for teaching by non-Thomas/non-Tompkins, but still Kunin could have approached them first to talk. The colleagues actually seem to be either pro-Kunin or at least not pro-Thomas/Tompkins in the beginning/middle of the drama. By the time they're not pro-Kunin, the vibe is that it's because they would rather get over the drama rather than that they think Thomas/Tompkins are actually victims.
Kunin is described as socially awkward in comments here, and I can see how that might be interpreted. Surely, if he had just swept the Ellison topic under the rug, it might never have blown up to this point. But this is after a long period of time where Thomas/Tompkins were pushing his buttons on top of denying him the right to teach about a Black author. An academic like him would chafe at that kind of racial segregation. Pushing his buttons include making comments about him retaliating by.. enforcing department rules on how department funds are spent. An investigator that agreed with Thomas/Tompkins on that, but a judge later pointed out that the investigator used an example that was literally the opposite of what happened. Or retaliating like
That grinds a person down. Or how about this interaction?
r/Professors points out that she would have been making at least $160K per year, as she puts down Kunin multiple times for how much more junior he is to her. She'd been at Pomona for decades, so she wouldn't be making the average. Even if she is not in a position to front money for dinner for reimbursement later, who talks like this to their colleague? She could have just said "I don't have the ability to cover dinner and either we find a another way to do so or we cannot do the dinner" or something to that effect. For someone who was outraged(!) over him wanting to teach a class without her approval first (a nice informality, but not required), she did not respond with any grace there herself.
By the end, I actively disliked Thomas/Tompkins, understood Kunin and rest of colleagues, even if I don't agree that all actions played out "optimally" in terms of harmony. But that's Kunin's right.
P.S. Rolled my eyes at the request from Thomas to have $2400 reimbursed for "Innerlight Method training", which Google says is "a groundbreaking energy therapy system for intuitive and highly sensitive adults and children".
After reading the article, I was so tempted to simply comment the following with no further context and then sit back to watch the fireworks:
“I guess it is true what people say: when all you’ve known is privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
If I were still on Reddit, I probably would have. But thankfully tildes values honest discussion over (not so witty) quips, so here is my take on the situation:
This is the type of story I like to call “one side offers accusations, the other presents evidence.”
There's no doubt that there are plenty of ways the chair could have handled the situation more gracefully, but the reactions and accusations of the two faculty members in question are just utterly ridiculous.
They come across as being so used to getting their way and being unchallenged/unaccountable that the smallest amount of oversight and responsibility caused them to cry bloody murder.
I agree with the judges findings: the chair was pretty strict in following the rules, but that doesn't mean he was being either retaliatory or discriminatory.
Honestly, this part is to me the most telling:
I find it rather ridiculous to demand a colleague to ask permission before they can even propose a seminar they want to teach.
Man, so much of this reminded me of the shit I'd see blasted over the faculty/grad list servs when I was in grad school in an English department.
It's hard to say if anyone was right in this situation. No one on the one side of the argument wanted to speak on the subject on the record, so so much of what's covered is pieced together from available records, and then there's the former chair himself, who can't be seen as an objective source.
I think that the chair has poor interpersonal skills which frankly isn't that surprising to me based on my own experiences in English departments, but it also seemed like the other two primary figures in the story had personal issues with him which they let spill out into every interaction with him.
I don't know if the classes he wanted to teach were racist or even antagonistic, but considering some of his allies even tried to talk him out of it the second time suggests to me there's some additional context we may be missing.
Edit: thinking back over my last point, I'm guessing there's some aspect to this where people just wanted to move past it all and they saw him continuing to press the subject of teaching the class as digging in. Which it absolutely is, but caving would also not be facing the root of the problems in the department, either.
There is something to say for the fact that "no one" talked to this guy about their problems with him. That usually results, in my experience, from those conversations having been had previously and then not being productive/the people not feeling heard/change never happening. Especially when even his allies are like "dude stop."
He brings back memories of some of the worst professors and coworkers I've had though so I'll admit to a really biased POV coming out here.
But that's not true, is it? He did meet with at least one of the two main subjects about this, prior to becoming chair:
Clearly this didn't mend the fences like he believed, but he was confronted by them, offered to meet to discuss, and then met again later on to continue the discussion.
He claimed they didn't come and talk to him about their problems with him. When that happens, in my experience it's because it's an unproductive conversation. In this, he reached out afterwards and at least says he thought they'd mended fences. But his comment elsewhere in the article was that they didn't come talk to him directly.
We only have his perspective, but I don't think he's a reliable narrator. To her, she might have felt like his second proposal proved her frustration as valid and she responded with a bunch of "educate yourself" material.
I think it's telling who is willing to talk and that no one else wants sucked back into this. But once again, I'm fully biased.
I'm currently dealing with someone like that at work, someone to whom I'm very grateful otherwise. It's exhausting.
Yeah i have my best grasp at being unbiased in the explainer about the academic portion of the thing.
Otherwise this guy rubs me the wrong way, and it does make things toxic for everyone else. I've had direct conversations with one example, had them get deflected/negated, been (poorly) set up to fail, had everything undermined and had them go around me to my boss not with legitimate concerns but with a "parent said no, other parent will say yes" attitude (other parent did not) .
I guarantee they'd say they're not being told about the concerns directly. And I caught myself bitching about them to too many equally frustrated people which was also toxic vibes. So, at some point it's a personal dislike too, even though it didn't start there.
There's something extra spectacular and messy about college administrative drama.
My undergraduate program's director was accused of sexual harassment by several female students. When he was fired, he allegedly fled with a bunch of records. Staff payroll was messed up for a month or two. The assistant director had been unhealthy for a while and descending into senility. The graduate program's admins had to step in to administer the undergraduate program until replacements for both directors could be found.
This all went down a year or two after I graduated, and I found out about it from old classmates who stuck around for the graduate program.
Like... he just took them for the sake of messing up admin? That is so petty. :'D
I don't understand where people find the energy to stir up so much shit, life's tiring enough as it is.
I always think of Sayre's Law:
I think that while in the corporate world crazy stuff does happen, people can easily just find another job in a sea of jobs. But academia is small and underpaid, so everything is intensely personal, so when things get crazy, they get intensely crazy. >:D
If you’re getting fired anyway, may as well leave a mess. If you’re lucky, the whole place will collapse and you’ll put your former colleagues out of a job, too.