Kathleen
McElroy
a Black woman, a preeminent professor and
journalist - was hired to
revive the journalism program at Texas
A&M University. Then came
the backlash from white
conservatives
within the system
who took issue with her work at the New
York Times and her focus on
diversity and inclusion in newsrooms.
Texas A&M then backtracked
and watered down its offer, which McElroy
rejected. This is but the
latest example of Black educators under
attack - scrutinized,
marginalized and scapegoated by white
supremacists who would remove
Black people from education.
Texas
A&M reached a $1
million settlement
with McElroy. This, after an internal
investigation
found that conservative university
officials sabotaged her hiring -
part of an effort to promote “conservative
values” in the A&M
journalism program and elsewhere in the
university, and “control
the liberal nature that those professors
brought to campus.”
What
happened to McElroy is nothing new and
reflects a widespread pattern
of attacks on Black educators. As Michael
Harriot
painstakingly chronicled in his four-part
series in theGrio, South
Carolina - once a Black-controlled state
during Reconstruction - is
ground zero in the attack against Black
educators and culturally
responsive education. In the Palmetto
State, Moms for Liberty is
taking out Black superintendents in
majority Black school districts
in the name of preserving whiteness.
Whether
in college or on the K-12 level, the ongoing
purge of Black teachers,
professors, educators, administrators and
Black studies will have a
devastating impact not just on Black
students but on all students,
society in general and the educational
system as a whole. When we
hide the crimes of history and silence the
truth-tellers, we empower
and embolden repeat offenders.
A
tenured professor at the University of
Texas at Austin and a former
director of its journalism school, McElroy
was recruited to lead the
journalism
program
at her alma mater, which had been
dissolved in 2004.
What
began as an offer for tenure and a
five-year contract to lead the
program - which she signed, pending
approval from the Texas A&M
Board of Regents - was whittled down to a
five-year contract with no
tenure and finally a one-year contract as
a professor with no tenure
and three years as director, with Texas
A&M being able to fire
her at will. Amid a “DEI
hysteria”
that led to her appointment stalling,
McElroy rejected the offer.
Texas
A&M President Kathy
Banks,
who announced her immediate
retirement
in light of the matter, said she was
unaware of the contract changes
leading to the hiring mishap. However,
Banks reportedly interfered
with McElroy’s hiring process, and race
played a role in the
watering down of the professor’s contract,
according to Hart
Blanton, head of Texas A&M’s
department of communications and
journalism, who was involved in recruiting
McElroy.
“Texas
A&M is going to remain a second-rate
institution and we will
never be a top-tier institution if we
allow individuals to accept the
reality that we cannot recruit diverse
people,” said veteran
journalist Roland
Martin,
a Texas A&M alum at the Texas
A&M
Black Former Student Network
Virtual Town Hall Meeting.
Meanwhile,
the
Texas
A&M
Faculty Senate
condemned the school administration for
its role in the botched
hiring process. The faculty group said in
a letter that it “decries
the appearance of outside influence in the
hiring and promotion of
faculty,” which is detrimental to “the
common goal of preserving
Texas A&M University as a premier
institution with an outstanding
reputation,” as the Texas Tribune
reported.
Professors
and
advocates of free speech alike noted that
vocal
right-wing
pressure groups
were speaking out against the hiring of
McElroy.
A
conservative lobbying group of Texas
A&M alums also opposed the
hiring of McElroy and said “she
was
not a good fit for this role,”
and reportedly had access and complained
to
university officials.
This group, the
Rudder Association,
was formed during the George Floyd Black
Lives Matter protests of
2020 to protect the campus statue of
Lawrence Sullivan “Sully”
Ross, former Texas A&M president and
Texas governor, and
confederate general who was praised as “the
gallant
Texas negro killer,”
Ross was responsible for ordering the mass
murder of Black Union
soldiers who had surrendered outside Yazoo
City, Mississippi on March
5, 1864.
The
war on Black scholars
What
happened to McElroy in Texas is but the
latest example of a
full-scale war on Black educators and Black
education across the
country.
Ta-Nehisi
Coates
recently crashed a South Carolina school
board meeting on the banning
of his 2015 autobiography “Between the
World and Me,” which deals
with racism and being Black in America.
Coates lent support to a
teacher who came under fire for teaching
his book.
Texas
and other jurisdictions have banned the
teaching of Nikole
Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project. Hannah-Jones
was denied tenure at the
University
of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill
- unlike her white
predecessors
in that position
- because of white backlash over the 1619
Project. She then rejected
their subsequent tenure offer and headed
to Howard
University.
Walter
Hussman,
a UNC graduate who donated $25 million to
the journalism school that
now bears his name, told university
officials he opposed
Hannah-Jones.
And
Black scholars face punishment from
universities for speaking out on
the racial issues of the day. For example,
when Queen Elizabeth died
- and Black, Indigenous and Irish Twitter
took the opportunity to
reflect on the genocidal legacy of British
colonialism and
imperialism - Carnegie Mellon linguistics
researcher Uju
Anya
showed no mercy for the queen on social
media and wished her an
excruciating death. After
billionaire
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos complained
about the tweet,
Carnegie Mellon responded
by tweeting “We do not condone the
offensive and objectionable
messages posted by Uju Anya…Free
expression is core to the mission
of higher education, however, the views
she shared absolutely do not
represent the values of the institution,
nor the standards of
discourse we seek to foster.”
When
slavery benefited the enslaved
Like
Texas, Florida is waging an assault on
Blackness, history and
academic freedom. The Florida Board of
Education has approved new
whitewashed standards to teach middle
school students how
enslaved Black people
“developed skills which, in some
instances, could be applied for
their personal benefit.” Florida Gov. Ron
DeSantis managed to both
distance himself from the new curriculum
standards and
support them,
claiming “I wasn’t involved,” but adding,
“They’re probably
going to show that some of the folks that
eventually parlayed, you
know, being a blacksmith into doing things
later in life. But the
reality is, all of that is rooted in
whatever is factual.”
Further,
Gov. DeSantis is dismantling New College -
a small public liberal
arts college and a self-described “college
of
free thinkers”
with a substantial LGBTQ population - and
transforming it into a
dystopian white nationalist hellscape.
Claiming that New College
indoctrinates its students with leftist
ideology, DeSantis has purged
administrators and faculty and installed
anti-critical race theory
henchman and water carrier for white
supremacy Christopher
Rufo
as a board member. Florida has become toxic
ground
for Black professors, and other faculty
who are either fleeing the
state or refusing to come to a place where
Blackness and diversity,
equity and inclusion (DEI) are under
siege.
A
national crisis of Black professors
This
purging of Black professors and Black
studies is doing real damage.
Along with these concerted efforts to wipe
Blackness out of
education, there are examples of “racism
without
racists”
- where racism most certainly shapes the
structures of these
predominantly white and male educational
institutions even as
individuals in these institutions may not
consider themselves racist.
A
mere 6%
of college faculty in the U.S. are
Black professors.
The low numbers of Black faculty amount to
a “national
crisis”
in higher education, reflecting a
widespread belief among white
academia that Black profs are too risky
and not a “good fit.” It
gives the impression that some colleges
and universities are more
reluctant
to hire Black faculty
than admit Black students.
Similarly,
Black
teachers
and administrators
on the K-12 level are leaving the
profession due to burnout and heavy
workloads, lack of support, COVID and
angry parents and politicians.
U.S.
public school teachers are far
less diverse
than their students. In recent years,
nearly 80% of teachers were
white, even as white children were a
minority of students. Teachers
of color are 20%
of public school teachers,
with 7% as Black teachers. In the
2020-2021 school year, fewer than
2% of teachers were Black
men,
while white women accounted for 61%.
Yet,
the benefits of having Black educators are
clear. Black professors
and other faculty of color are crucial in
providing students with
intercultural
competence,
which is a person’s ability to function
and communicate well across
different cultures, and is critical to the
development of college
students in navigating a multiracial and
multicultural world.
Hiring
more Black teachers improves
educational
outcomes
for Black students. Young children develop
better
problem-solving
and learning skills
when taught by teachers of the same
ethnicity, with the most dramatic
effects for Black and Latinx children.
More Black
male
teachers
are needed to serve as role models and
mentors for Black young
people. It is important for Black children
and young people to see
their future selves reflected at the front
of the classroom - Black
teachers as living examples of their
future potential.
Black
teachers go about the world with their own
swagger and energy, their
own perspective and worldview that society
will not find elsewhere.
How dare we deny young minds and future
leaders of this energy, other
than to disempower them and rob them of the
tools for their success?
White supremacy would say that’s the whole
point, which also
explains the war on Black studies.
What
we are witnessing with the DEI hysteria in
Florida, in Texas and
elsewhere is fascism with American Jim
Crow sensibilities, or what
Toni
Morrison
called “the forces interested in fascist
solutions to national
problems.” In 1995 at Howard University,
Morrison said “Racism
may wear a new dress, buy a new pair of
boots, but neither it nor its
succubus twin fascism is new or can make
anything new. It can only
reproduce the environment that supports
its own health: fear, denial
and an atmosphere in which its victims
have lost the will to fight.”
Erase
the memory of our past and those who teach
it, and you deprive us of
our power and a better future. And without
the knowledge of past
injustices, we allow these injustices to
return, as in right now.
This is why the battle for Black educators
and Black education is so
important.
