Home Features Blackburn Faculty in Response to “President Murray-Jensen Under Investigation for Potentially Discriminatory Comments”

Blackburn Faculty in Response to “President Murray-Jensen Under Investigation for Potentially Discriminatory Comments”

by Gary Lowder

[Editor’s Note: The following is an opinion piece written by a majority of the Blackburn faculty. It should be noted that, because this is an opinion piece, the views shared below do not necessarily represent the opinion of The ‘Burnian or its editorial staff.]

 

We, the undersigned faculty, firmly believe it is our moral responsibility to foster and protect a diverse, inclusive, and equitable community; to do otherwise undermines our community’s integrity and commitment to the liberal arts. We also believe it is our responsibility to challenge and dismantle all forms of discrimination; to do otherwise compromises our shared culture of recognizing and supporting the dignity of every individual student, staff, faculty, and community member.

We hereby pledge to the Blackburn community and all those it includes that we uphold Blackburn’s Community Values and Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion statement (see below). In doing so, we adamantly oppose racism and all forms of discrimination, recognizing that they are institutional tools of exclusion and oppression, which, even when not directed at specific individuals, create barriers to individual opportunity and reinforce exclusionary, stratified, and inequitable systems.

We hereby call upon the College’s administration and Board of Trustees to uphold these values; we can neither expect nor accept any less. The College must exemplify the values outlined in the statement below or fail in its commitment to students, fail in its mission, and lose its identity as an institution.

We commend staff and faculty members for their integrity and courage in upholding their responsibility as mandated reporters, and we commend Gary Lowder and Rachel Burke for their journalistic integrity and courage in reporting on the investigation into the President’s alleged discriminatory remarks.

 

Carter Aikin

Gerry Albins

Mark Armstrong

Mark Benedetti

James Bray Jr

Michael Bradley

Natasha Casey

Carolyn Conover

Kevin Coogan

Naomi Crummey

Pamela Danker

Karen Dillon

Josh Gross

Tena Krause

Gary Long

Karl Luth

Christina McCurley

Jonathan Micancin

Craig Newsom

Shelly Peffer

Cindy Rice

Laura Wiedlocher

Tim Wilson

Edward Zalisko

Elizabeth Zobel




Blackburn’s Community Values and Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion Blackburn College embraces diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, gender identity, culture, nationality, age, socioeconomic status, neurodiversity, religious affiliation or lack thereof, and the many other attributes that contribute towards the cultural richness of our campus community.

We value our diverse identities that help our relationships flourish and our community thrive. In doing so, we are committed to:

  • Seeking understanding across difference
  • Resisting the pervasiveness of racism and other forms of discrimination
  • Emulating respect, compassion, and integrity in our relationships with each other;
  • Prioritizing marginalized people’s safety
  • Recognizing that hostility, stereotyping, and/or disparaging remarks towards any identity, even when not directed at specific individuals, creates a hostile environment which undermines our community’s integrity and the liberal arts.

 

It is also expected that Blackburn community members (staff and faculty) will not propagate racist or discriminatory views in teaching, learning, or working relationship as it compromises the integrity and credibility of our community.

To be consistent with our conviction for diversity and inclusion, every Blackburn College member is responsible for upholding these community standards for the merit of our institution.

Blackburn College is committed to building our awareness of diversity through workshops, training sessions and other learning opportunities that help us create a safe and inclusive environment for everyone. Disruptive, condescending, or harassing behavior that compromises any learning opportunity is a violation of Blackburn’s community standards. It is also expected that Blackburn community members (staff and faculty) will not propagate racist or discriminatory views in teaching, learning, or working relationship as it compromises the integrity and credibility of our community.

 

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1 comment

Eric Strickland May 24, 2019 - 7:20 pm

After hearing about the unfortunate remarks attributed to Dr. Murray-Jensen which were made at a meeting in April, I feel compelled to make a few comments about the current situation at Blackburn College, as well as my own experiences there.
(Eric Strickland, Class of 1981)

The first comment that Dr. Murray-Jensen is reported to have made regarding ‘a typical small, timid, Asian woman,’ reminds me of the practice used by Ivy League Schools which is employed to winnow out the pool of applicants by assigning students with an Asian background a low score for ‘personality.’
The second comment she made concerning ‘the Inclusion Statement being a deterrence to white applicants,’ sounds like an appeal to white privilege. What I hear Dr. Murray-Jensen saying is that she believes that white applicants should be spared any anxiety that could come from knowing that they might possibly have to compete with applicants who are persons of color. ‘We want the playing field to be level for all, but we especially want it to be level for white applicants.’

I note, after having scrolled through the online directory of all of the faculty and administrative departments, that BU does not currently employ any Asians on a full-time basis in any department. One wonders why there should be such an outspoken reticence toward hiring Asians at Blackburn College coming from the very top of the institution?

I would also mention that I am of Asian descent, though you would not guess that my based on my name.
(I was adopted from Korea and raised by Anglo parents.)
What was it like to be a student with Asian physical appearance at Blackburn College in the late 1970’s – early 1980’s?

Well, beginning with the Spring semester of 1979, I was the lone, solitary Asian on the entire campus, and it remained that way until I graduated in 1981. (It is the case that Dr. Singh had a son and daughter enrolled at BU. However, they commuted from home, and as far as I could tell did not participate in the life of the campus community outside of attending classes there.)

During the first week or two of my freshman year, another student on my floor in Jewell Hall decided that I looked like a character named ‘Bolo’ from a Bruce Lee movie. Now I had never seen any Bruce Lee movies; I wanted nothing to do with martials arts and the stereotype that all Asians are born doing karate chops and high kicks. But, as that student was an outspoken and high status individual, who happened to be black, it wasn’t long before virtually all of the African-American students at BU were calling me ‘Bolo.’ That nickname, based on a racial stereotype I was trying my best to avoid, persisted all four years I was at BU.

During my junior year, I had a roommate who decided to start calling me, ‘The Nip.’ I didn’t appreciate that, either. But once again, another race-based appellation took hold, and soon everyone in his circle of friends, and to the extent that my circle of friends overlapped with his, there were quite a lot of people calling me, ‘The Nip.’

Being continuously reminded by so many of my fellow students at Blackburn College that I was ‘the other,’ was a rather alienating experience, to say the least.

As for the current student body, I reference the Winter 2017 edition of Blackburn Update. It is noteworthy that while the feature article was about ‘Diversity and Inclusion,’ there are no Asians in any of the photos included with the article. I cannot escape the conclusion that if there are any Asian students at BU, they number far less than 1% of the student body, even though Asians now make up nearly 6% of America’s population.

It makes me sad that apparently nothing has changed since the time when I was the single, solitary Asian person at Blackburn College forty years ago.

Now that the investigation into the matter of Dr. Murray-Jensen’s comments has been completed, and assuming that Dr. Murray-Jensen’s job is safe, I hope that she will learn from this experience. I hope that she will examine her racial biases, unconscious and otherwise, as well as her white privilege, and grow toward truly being a more inclusive person. And I hope the same for the Blackburn community at large.

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