A blast from the past
It's Saturday night, I tried to break my homework strike and study....but free wireless in the coffee shop beckons. So I googled myself--and below is one of the things I found - it's a letter to the editor of my college paper. It's such a good reminder of the issues that I used to work on, and the ways that we connected them while in school. In the years since, it seems that I've segmented my work for social justice into somewhat disconnected issues -- primarily through focusing deeply on organizing around education and immigrant rights. I'm also reminded by this letter that I'm a decent writer, and I should write more!
Here 'tis:
June 2, 1999 -The Stanford Daily
The brainpower at this University is amazing. People have an immense capacity for understanding, seeing connections and thinking critically. Why, then, does our administration fail to recognize the connections between a possible Labor Department investigation of hiring and promotion practices, former Law Prof. Linda Mabry's resignation from the Law School, Native American Asst. English Prof. Robert Warrior's tenure denial, a hunger strike for ethnic studies at UC-Berkeley, labor historian Karen Sawislak's decision to leave and not go through another tenure battle, black lesbian feminist Asst. English Prof. Sharon Holland's decision to leave and the racist e-mail sent out this weekend?
All these in the past five months. Count them. FIVE. As much as the administration would like to believe, these events are not isolated.
Add to these the innumerable events I've seen during my four years at Stanford. You'd think that we'd have come somewhere. Indeed, we got full time directors for the Women's Center and LGBCC. We got the Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. We fought five years and finally got ramps and an elevator to some of the community centers. But I've also seen many tenure battles, "chinks suck" scribbled in the Asian American Activities Center, homophobic grafitti at the Bollards eating club, the suicide of a queer Chicana English professor, the withering away of the Stanford Center for Chicana/o Research, the dismantling of the Food Research Institute and the appointment of former Gov. Pete Wilson as a Hoover fellow.
When we are supposedly a University on the cutting edge, why do we deprioritize work against racism, sexism and homophobia? Why don't we take the opportunity to pioneer innovative research on these issues? To train ourselves, the future leaders of America, to deal effectively and constructively with these "isms"? Why does it take a racist and inflammatory e-mail for the Stanford administration to call a community meeting? Why does it take students hunger striking and getting arrested before the UC-Berkeley administration will listen?
I challenge University President Gerhard Casper, Provost-elect John Hennessy, Vice Provost for Student Affiars James Montoya and Dean of Students Marc Wais to see the connections between all these events. To see that these are all reasons for people of color, women and queer people to stay away from Stanford. And to take initiative to prevent further similar incidents.
This means more than simply tracking down the author of the e-mail. This means working consistently and proactively to hire and retain faculty of color and women; to encourage innovative scholarship in ethnic studies, queer studies, Southeast Asian studies, Islamic Studies; to confront race and gender and sexuality and disability in our dormitories in meaningful ways; to attract and train graduate students who will themselves be excellent and innovative scholars. Stanford cannot be a premiere university if it continues to address these issues only in crisis.
It is time for the new deans and provost to take a true leadership role and reflect on what they can do to pro-actively combat racism, sexism and homophobia on this campus.
When I come back in the fall, I want to see new initiatives and policies, because I am tired, and I do not want to go on a hunger strike, I do not want to take over a building, I do not want to spend my academic time fighting for the right to be here, the right to have professors who do not look like me (I am white) or the right to study Southeast Asian or Native American literature or Chicana/os on the border.
I know deep down that this will not happen. So I challenge my fellow students to hold the administrators accountable to this. Ask them what they are doing, push them to take action and join me and others when we need to make noise because they are not moving. Join a race dialogue, learn about the Stanford Center for Chicana/o Research or work with incoming Provost Hennessy to understand the connections between recent tenure denials and the general climate for underrepresented groups at Stanford.
Dr. Seuss wrote, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not."
I care. Do you?
Cathy Rion Senior, mathematics
Here 'tis:
June 2, 1999 -The Stanford Daily
The brainpower at this University is amazing. People have an immense capacity for understanding, seeing connections and thinking critically. Why, then, does our administration fail to recognize the connections between a possible Labor Department investigation of hiring and promotion practices, former Law Prof. Linda Mabry's resignation from the Law School, Native American Asst. English Prof. Robert Warrior's tenure denial, a hunger strike for ethnic studies at UC-Berkeley, labor historian Karen Sawislak's decision to leave and not go through another tenure battle, black lesbian feminist Asst. English Prof. Sharon Holland's decision to leave and the racist e-mail sent out this weekend?
All these in the past five months. Count them. FIVE. As much as the administration would like to believe, these events are not isolated.
Add to these the innumerable events I've seen during my four years at Stanford. You'd think that we'd have come somewhere. Indeed, we got full time directors for the Women's Center and LGBCC. We got the Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. We fought five years and finally got ramps and an elevator to some of the community centers. But I've also seen many tenure battles, "chinks suck" scribbled in the Asian American Activities Center, homophobic grafitti at the Bollards eating club, the suicide of a queer Chicana English professor, the withering away of the Stanford Center for Chicana/o Research, the dismantling of the Food Research Institute and the appointment of former Gov. Pete Wilson as a Hoover fellow.
When we are supposedly a University on the cutting edge, why do we deprioritize work against racism, sexism and homophobia? Why don't we take the opportunity to pioneer innovative research on these issues? To train ourselves, the future leaders of America, to deal effectively and constructively with these "isms"? Why does it take a racist and inflammatory e-mail for the Stanford administration to call a community meeting? Why does it take students hunger striking and getting arrested before the UC-Berkeley administration will listen?
I challenge University President Gerhard Casper, Provost-elect John Hennessy, Vice Provost for Student Affiars James Montoya and Dean of Students Marc Wais to see the connections between all these events. To see that these are all reasons for people of color, women and queer people to stay away from Stanford. And to take initiative to prevent further similar incidents.
This means more than simply tracking down the author of the e-mail. This means working consistently and proactively to hire and retain faculty of color and women; to encourage innovative scholarship in ethnic studies, queer studies, Southeast Asian studies, Islamic Studies; to confront race and gender and sexuality and disability in our dormitories in meaningful ways; to attract and train graduate students who will themselves be excellent and innovative scholars. Stanford cannot be a premiere university if it continues to address these issues only in crisis.
It is time for the new deans and provost to take a true leadership role and reflect on what they can do to pro-actively combat racism, sexism and homophobia on this campus.
When I come back in the fall, I want to see new initiatives and policies, because I am tired, and I do not want to go on a hunger strike, I do not want to take over a building, I do not want to spend my academic time fighting for the right to be here, the right to have professors who do not look like me (I am white) or the right to study Southeast Asian or Native American literature or Chicana/os on the border.
I know deep down that this will not happen. So I challenge my fellow students to hold the administrators accountable to this. Ask them what they are doing, push them to take action and join me and others when we need to make noise because they are not moving. Join a race dialogue, learn about the Stanford Center for Chicana/o Research or work with incoming Provost Hennessy to understand the connections between recent tenure denials and the general climate for underrepresented groups at Stanford.
Dr. Seuss wrote, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not."
I care. Do you?
Cathy Rion Senior, mathematics
posted by Cathy at 10:34 p. m.
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