Jury Finds Oregon Professor Suffered Bias for Not Being Fully Japanese

This sort of event and non-event is a truly difficult process to get through. I’m glad she pressed charges, and that she will receive some recompense. Still, this does not set things back to where she still has her career within a department without bias. She’ll still have to move on, or suffer the stupid hostilities. My journey through grad school was marred by a “reverse” racism as well, and I found out too late that this racism had spilled covertly into my job dossier, prompting anonymous department heads to call me to say they found my portfolio outstanding, but they could not interview me because of this one condemning letter of reference. That letter came from a prof who said she would be happy to write me a strong letter. Ultimately, the letter she did write, which destroyed 35 applications (I received zero interviews that year, showed she was far more committed in preserving “marketing turf” for students of a different racial make-up than my own. What a deep disappointment. My publishing had been well-received, my other letters were great; there was nothing I could do officially at the university or departmental level to pin this on her because all letters were supposed to be confidential. I was never supposed to have known. My sponsor did pull the letter from my official file. It was devastating, out for the kill. I fell apart for some time under the weight of this betrayal and racially-motivated act. I want very much to hear from anyone else who has experienced this sort of reversed racisim. We know minorities racial and ethnic have engaged in struggles for equal treatment. I am not a minority. I’m a middle-class white woman who had been studying African and Caribbean fiction by women writers since approx 1972-1990. Very exciting important events, my enthusiasm and hard work on this subject was BIG! Was it so naive of me to think that at the PhD level, I would run into racism pure and simple? Is it right that, although my work showed talent and hard work, another student, whose work was far less rigorous and less developed, should receive a great letter of reference because she is black? Will an African-American assistant professor teach the material better, “more authentically,” because of the color of her skin? How could she, when she hadn’t done half the work I’d done? There is a gut-level, conservative feeling that Japanese must teach about Japan and Japanese culture, that African- , American- , or Caribbean-black must be the only ones to teach on issues having to do with the African Diaspora and other crucial elements of African and African-American history and culture. Since when has the quality of our brain been expressed through the color of our skin? No, perhaps I don’t possess the background of an oppressed, inner-city Black child who escaped to make something of herself. That’s the narrative the students want to hear or at least imagine? Well, I can tell you that the woman who received this job came from a far more privileged background than I did. She’s Black, though, so she’s got a deeper authority to teach the stories she’ll teach. Is it in her blood? In her genes? Professors of all stripes, write honestly about the work we grad students have discussed with you, or which you have received from us. Don’t patronize us by saying we’re the best if that is false. Even worse, never say you’ll write a strong letter of recommendation when you have no intention of doing so. But then, what’s it going to be? African-American or 100% Japanese professors should just not recruit anyone of a different race, ethnicity, or class? Cuz if your department recruits me as a grad student, I expect each professor to have been hired to that department only after swearing they will not rely on racist pre-conceptions when it comes time to critique work or write evaluations. I didn’t spend so much at a prestigious school to run into virulent racism right as I was nearing the finish line and was ready to market myself. I wish I could Have justice for what happened to me. It has haunted me, broken my heart, since those anonymous calls (one call was from Wellesley area code) announcing the totally damaging letter that stood in such contrast to an otherwise outstanding dossier.

I have been told outright to my face that I would not even be considered for certain posts because I was the wrong ethnicity. The members of a faculty selection committee once apologized to me for selecting me, not knowing that their selection would be vetoed at the presidential level.I don’t waste time crying over it. I am from the south, and have seen it go the other way many times. I have also gotten my satisfaction in other ways: eventually getting one of the positions, and seeing the other fail to the tune of several millions of dollars because no one knew how to make the project work. Although I was angry at one time, there is nothing one can do but move on. You only live once. Go on and write the definitive book on the subject while others live with mediocrity.