Professors File Landmark Suit Exposing Cover Up of Discrimination and Corruption at University of Michigan
Two highly-accomplished, award-winning faculty have filed a joint complaint against the University of Michigan for violations of the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act based on race discrimination, gender discrimination, marital status discrimination, race hostile work environment, and retaliation; and violations of the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, for discriminatory hostile treatment and retaliation.
The complaint demonstrates that U-M’s highly publicized “diversity” campaigns are driven by self-serving rhetoric and false promises designed to deflect attention from serious and ongoing problems of institutional racism, underrepresentation of minority groups, and a hostile campus climate for marginalized groups. The complaint documents multiple instances in which university leaders acted to suppress complaints of discrimination and retaliate against faculty and students who reported both systemic patterns and individual acts of discrimination. It reveals misconduct and complicity by administrators from the departmental level to the highest ranks of the deans’ and provost’s offices, including UM’s chief diversity officer.
While on protected leave under the Family Medical Leave Act to care for a baby with Down syndrome in Winter 2015, Emily Lawsin, a professor in the Departments of American Culture and Women’s Studies, was sent a layoff notice with no prior warning and despite her strong teaching record dating back to 2000. Lawsin successfully contested that layoff, but the university again barred her from teaching during the current Winter 2017 Semester.
Scott Kurashige, formerly professor in the Department of American Culture, was terminated from his position as Director of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program in December 2013 and was forced out of a tenured faculty position through a constructive termination in summer 2014 after successfully working at U-M for 14 years. Kurashige is one of 20 faculty of color, an alarming number, who left (with many forced out from) the small-to- medium sized Department of American Culture between 1997 and 2016.
Professor Lawsin requests reinstatement to her Lecturer IV faculty position without a “Remediation Plan.” Professor Kurashige requests that U-M reinstate him to his former positions of Professor with tenure and Director of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program at an equitable salary reflecting his experience and achievements. Both request economic and non-economic damages and permanent injunctive relief to stop race/ethnic discrimination at U-M.
Professors Lawsin and Kurashige are represented by Alice Jennings, a partner in the law firm of Edwards & Jennings, PC, based in Detroit. The above summary provides highlights of the 74-page complaint—filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on December 5, 2016.
Alumni Voices: An Open Letter to the University of Michigan Leadership
By Veronica Garcia, MA, LCSW University of Michigan, Class of 2010 Oakland, CA
Emily Lawsin was my first meaningful connection as a transplant to Ann Arbor from southern California. She introduced me to other student activists and community organizers and provided a refuge from the hostile racial climate of the university. I have benefited from her generosity of spirit, fierce commitment to community and social justice, creativity, and intellect in profound ways.
2008 photo of the A/PIA Heritage Month Board, including A/PIA Studies Minors Veronica Garcia (second from right) and Aisa Villarosa (second from left)
Through Emily, I had the opportunity to mentor Filipino youth in Detroit, develop closer relationships with my own family though training and practice in oral history taking, and sharpen my community organizing skills. My experience as an A/PIA Studies minor was formative to my personal growth and intellectual development, ultimately providing me with a strong foundation in critical analysis and community organizing that I still hold today as a social worker and psychotherapist in the Bay Area. My relationship with Emily continued after graduation; while I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley, she and her partner, Scott Kurashige (whose treatment by the University was similarly disturbing and unjust) supported my organizing of a landmark meeting between the late Grace Lee Boggs and Angela Davis. Over 1,500 people flocked to the UC Berkeley campus (and thousands more streamed the event online) to learn about revolution from two of the movements most influential leaders. Emily and Scott’s dogged commitment to praxis and social justice have inspired students and awakened activism in people far beyond Ann Arbor.
Emily and her colleagues in A/PIA Studies provided a protective and nurturing space from which I could learn and grow despite the psychological toll of daily microaggessions and occasions of outright racism and misogyny from LSA faculty and other students. Emily’s firing and the systematic dismantling of A/PIA Studies has robbed future generations of Michigan students of their right to a generative and supportive education. As an alumni, I hope that the University will take seriously its commitment to social justice, equity, and inclusion by ending its harassment of Emily Lawsin and support meaningful efforts to re-establish Michigan A/PIA Studies as a nationally renowned academic and community-based program.
Written by Veronica Garcia, MA, LCSW University of Michigan, Class of 2010 Oakland, CA
When Accusations of Incivility Spell Doom for Faculty Members
By Katherine Mangan
MARCH 28, 2018
Two scholars accuse the U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor of punishing them for criticizing the administration. The case highlights tensions that can arise when professors butt heads with their bosses.
When Emily P. Lawsin’s department chair admonished her to be more "collegial and constructive" in her tone, the complaint sounded familiar. The chair had accused Lawsin’s husband, Scott Kurashige, of being uncooperative and disruptive after he, too, had raised complaints about the treatment of minority scholars at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Lawsin and Kurashige, who together helped build Michigan’s program in Asian/Pacific Islander American studies, are activist scholars who for years were thorns in the sides of university administrators.
Kurashige left for the University of Washington at Bothell four years ago, after he was effectively pushed out, he says. Lawsin was just handed a terminal contract. Both claim, in a lawsuit against the university, that Michigan administrators punished them for their frequent complaints that the university had done too little to attract and retain students and faculty members of color.
One of the ways it did so, they contend, is by portraying them as troublemakers who were themselves contributing to a hostile work climate.
Accusations of incivility can spell doom for a professor, and to this faculty couple, the charges smacked of retaliation.
In 2016 they filed a lawsuit against the university, which their lawyer says is scheduled for trial in November. The case illustrates the tensions that can arise when professors who butt heads with their bosses are punished for being "uncivil" or "uncollegial." And it reflects the challenges that colleges face in trying to protect scholars’ freedom to complain without giving them license to create an atmosphere that’s toxic for everyone.
Pleas for civility have, in recent years, prompted angry responses on several campuses, where critics have interpreted them as efforts to silence controversial viewpoints.
This debate famously flared up in 2014, when the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign cited incivility in its last-minute decision to revoke a job offer to Steven G. Salaita based on his incendiary tweets criticizing Israel. Some saw it as an affront to academic freedom; others, a reasoned response to strident and vulgar speech.
In the Michigan case, according to the lawsuit, administrators found fault with the tone of the couple’s remarks to administrators, including June Howard, who was then chair of the American-culture department.
Lawsin calls that "tone policing" — a term invoked by activists who feel that their message is devalued when the recipient focuses on how it was delivered.
Conflicting Accusations
Like a growing number of universities, Michigan takes on the issue of civility in its professional standards for faculty members.
The standards emphasize the importance of vigorous debate, even when it makes some people uncomfortable. However, they add, "The university also expects its members to engage each other in a professional manner, with civility and respect."
Faculty members can be penalized for actions that create "an intimidating, hostile, offensive or abusive climate" for work or study.
In 2013, Kurashige, who was then a tenured professor in the department of American culture at Michigan, was removed as director of the Asian/Pacific Islander American-studies program.
The following year, after he criticized the lack of diversity at the university in The Chronicle and other news media, administrators made it clear that his alleged lack of collegiality would bar him from further leadership roles, the lawsuit says.
When Howard accused Kurashige of bullying her and posing a potential threat to student safety, she cited the faculty-standards code, which call for penalties or even dismissal for those who violate it.
Viewing this as an attempt to silence him, Kurashige accepted a tenured position at Bothell.
It’s hard to judge whether the complaints of uncollegiality against Kurashige and Lawsin are overblown because the correspondence in question is locked up in litigation. Michigan administrators, including Howard, say they cannot comment about the case or the broader issues it raises.
In an amended complaint filed last month, the couple accused administrators of defaming them in a 2016 department review. Among other things, the review said Kurashige had gone on "tirades" against administrators he didn’t like during department meetings. It also said that faculty members reported that the climate improved in Asian-American studies when Kurashige left Michigan, but that when Lawsin returned from medical leave, she "picked up where he left off."
Kurashige is respected enough by his colleagues to have been elected president of the American Studies Association this month. Lawsin, a senior lecturer whose two-year terminal contract at Michigan began this month, says her classes are often oversubscribed.
An online petition by students and alumni of Michigan’s Asian-American program calls on the university to reinstate Kurashige to his position overseeing the program, and to "end the harassment" of Lawsin and grant her a five-year extension of her contract. The program, it said, is "a shadow of its former self" without two of the scholars who helped establish it.
Kurashige says he is one of 20 minority faculty members who left the American-culture department from 1997 to 2016, in part, he says, because they felt marginalized or disrespected. Among them was Sarita E. See, now a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California at Riverside.
In an email, she said any unpleasantness or frustration she experienced working with Kurashige "was nothing out of the ordinary and that it utterly paled in comparison with the totally untenable work conditions that led to my (and many other’s) departure — even after having gained tenure — from UM."
Kurashige contends that the university’s deans and department chairs "weaponized the discourses of civility and collegiality" to retaliate against him and other minority scholars for complaining about discrimination.
"When you have this revolving door, the primary criteria for retention is how deferential you are to your superiors," he says. "If you speak out about Trayvon Martin or Donald Trump, that’s OK, but you can’t bring that same level of analysis to issues of institutional racism that students on your own campus are raising."
Impassioned Beliefs
The controversy at Michigan demonstrates how challenging it can be to police civility and collegiality, particularly when scholars are voicing impassioned beliefs about hot-button issues like racism, says Gregory F. Scholtz, director of the department of academic freedom, tenure, and governance of the American Association of University Professors.
"Sometimes faculty members aren’t the most pleasant people to work with, and sometimes they can become angry or upset or express themselves in a heated manner," he says. "But doing so shouldn’t necessarily result in a sanction."
That doesn’t mean faculty members have the right to harass or persecute their colleagues, Scholtz says. Respectful behavior is important, he acknowledges, but punishing bad behavior can be problematic, especially since it’s so subjective.
The AAUP, in arguing against the idea of adding collegiality to teaching, scholarship, and service as a distinct category for evaluating faculty, warns of the danger of chilling debate and discussion. "Criticism and opposition do not necessarily conflict with collegiality," its statement reads. "Gadflies, critics of institutional practices or collegial norms, even the occasional malcontent, have all been known to play an invaluable and constructive role in the life of academic departments and institutions."
That’s not the way everyone sees it. While the Salaita case was making national headlines and bitterly dividing Illinois’s Urbana-Champaign campus, Kurashige and Lawsin’s case was unfolding more quietly during an emotionally stressful time for the couple.
In 2014 Lawsin gave birth to a baby with Down syndrome who needed open-heart surgery. During one of her medical leaves, she filed a complaint about institutional discrimination. According to the lawsuit, Howard said she was troubled by Lawsin’s tone and asked her to communicate in a more collegial and constructive manner.
"I was stunned," says Lawsin, who is Filipino and teaches in American studies and women’s studies. "Those of us who teach ethnic and gender studies know that that’s coded language, akin to calling someone a troublemaker." The image it conveys, she says, "falls into the ‘angry woman of color’ stereotype."
When Lawsin tried to return, in 2015, she says, she was laid off from all teaching duties until the union intervened. Since then she’s fought for the right to return to the classroom against "trumped-up allegations" that she was psychologically unfit to do so, the lawsuit states. The university, she contends, has also devalued her experience, describing her as a spousal hire.
Every semester, Lawsin says, she teaches about stereotypes, including "how Asian women are seen as docile and not necessarily outspoken." Of those in her program who have tried to debunk that idea, "I am one of the few left."
Uncertain Expectations
Tensions can surface when expectations for behavior aren’t clearly spelled out, says Ann E. Blankenship Knox, an assistant professor of leadership and higher education at the University of Redlands, who studies collegiality in the professoriate.
One professor might consider a professional disagreement over policies or student issues part of the academic process, while others might view the same interaction as hostile or insubordinate, she says.
"Without clearly articulated expectations of professional conduct — whether we call it civility, collegiality, or something else — how these standards are applied is then left up to those faculty members in charge of evaluation," Knox says. Even if it isn’t treated as a separate category, civility is nearly always measured in faculty evaluations, usually in the context of service, teaching, or research, she says.
Michigan’s faculty code of conduct does a relatively good job promoting a balance between academic freedom and the need to treat each other with respect, Knox says. It is more specific than many policies in both expected behavior and the process for alleged violations, she says.
Fostering a climate of civility has been a mission for nearly two decades for Robert E. Cipriano, a professor emeritus at Southern Connecticut State University. He wrote a book on the subject, Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success (Wiley, 2011),and has consulted with dozens of colleges that are trying to create more-civil environments without setting off freedom-of-speech alarms.
Cipriano has been surveying academic chairs since 2007 about their attitudes on collegiality. Last year about 80 percent favored adding collegiality to the list of criteria on which faculty members should be evaluated. About one in five of the approximately 80,000 academic chairs leave before their terms are up, he says. The No. 1 reason? Having to deal with a difficult faculty member.
A toxic, uncivil faculty member can destroy a department, he says. Morale slumps, stress rises, and productivity dips when dissent becomes personal.
He’s developed an assessment matrix that could be used to poll a department when an administrator accuses someone of incivility. If the person’s colleagues disagree, "it could show the administrator was being vindictive."
Lawsin, who believes that’s true in her case, says she’s often asked why she doesn’t leave Michigan. "This is my career. I helped rebuild Asian-American studies from the ground up on this campus," she says. To effect change, "you have to stand on principle, no matter how difficult."
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at [email protected].
Kurashige and Lawsin vs. University of Michigan -- Summary & Highlights from Complaint
Professors Emily Lawsin and Scott Kurashige have filed a joint complaint against the University of Michigan for violations of the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act based on race discrimination, gender discrimination, marital status discrimination, race hostile work environment, and retaliation; and violations of the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, for discriminatory hostile treatment and retaliation.
Professor Lawsin requests reinstatement to her Lecturer IV faculty position without a “Remediation Plan.” Professor Kurashige requests that U-M reinstate him to his former positions of Professor with tenure and Director of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program at an equitable salary reflecting his experience and achievements. Both request economic and non-economic damages and permanent injunctive relief to stop race/ethnic discrimination at U-M.
Professors Lawsin and Kurashige are represented by Alice Jennings, a partner in the law firm of Edwards & Jennings, PC, based in Detroit. The following are highlights of the 74-page complaint—filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on December 5, 2016.
Structural Patterns of Discrimination and Exclusion
U-M’s rhetoric celebrating its “deeply rooted commitment to diversity” is based on symbolic rather than substantive acts. U-M’s student enrollment in Fall 2015 was only 4.1 percent Black, 4.6 percent Hispanic, and 0.2 percent Native American. As of 2014, nearly 60 percent of its students came from families with annual incomes over $100,000 with roughly 30 percent coming from families with annual incomes over $200,000. By contrast, only 4 percent of students of all races came from the category U-M terms “low socioeconomic status.” Professor Kurashige documented extensive patterns of racial exclusion at U-M in a Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed, followed by an appearance on the Tavis Smiley Show.
The Michigan Daily has characterized U-M’s recruitment of students of color as “bait and switch” based on overblown claims that it champions diversity, equity, and an inclusive campus climate. Despite the annual release of multiple reports documenting problems with race/gender discrimination and a hostile race/gender climate, U-M has not taken effective action to redress problems, and many of its actions amount to smoke and mirrors. As a result, problems retaining faculty of color have been persistent and cancerous.
Suppression of Discrimination Complaints and Reports
Chief Diversity Officer/Vice Provost Robert Sellers was hired into his current position after participating in a secret, invitation-only faculty group coordinated by at least one U-M administrator. The group served to give select faculty an inside track for senior “diversity” appointments and leadership positions within the U-M administration.
Sellers refused to investigate or follow up on reports of discrimination against faculty and students of color, despite promising Professor Kurashige he would do so and acknowledging they fell within his administrative duties. Sellers also rescinded an offer to meet with Professor Lawsin to discuss her reports of discrimination against faculty and students of color. This dubious track record should cast doubt on Sellers’s ability to lead U-M’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan.
With the tacit approval of their superiors, white faculty leaders in the Department of American Culture have censored the 2013 Rackham Program Review, an official report from the Rackham Graduate School documenting problems with “climate and program equity” and “inappropriate faculty behavior and treatment of students.” Gregory Dowd, chair, and Kristin Hass, director of graduate studies, falsely stated that they were forbidden from distributing the report, which was, in fact, intended to be shared with faculty and graduate students. Instead, Dowd and Hass blamed the department’s “negative climate” on students of color and faculty of color who reported problems, and they used their positions and control of information to stigmatize and harass individuals who criticized their leadership.
Without conducting any investigation, the current chair of American Culture, June Howard responded to Professor Lawsin’s formal discrimination complaints by stating “the climate in the Department is good.” Ignoring the substance of the complaints and taking no effective action, Howard twice criticized Lawsin in writing for using a “tone” she found to be “uncollegial and troubling.” When presented with complaints citing violations of departmental bylaws, Howard stated in a public meeting that the department did not have any bylaws to which it was bound to adhere.
Kristin Hass has been the subject of repeated complaints from students and faculty reporting discrimination, harassment, and abuse of power in her teaching and mentoring of graduate students. As director of PhD admissions, Hass expressed categorical opposition to admitting PhD applicants she identified as “queer of color” or “undocumented.” These complaints were never properly investigated by the Department of American Culture or forwarded to proper university officials. Instead, Hass was repeatedly promoted to positions in which she exercised greater authority over graduate students. This cover-up culminated in Hass, after being nominated by the department, winning the John D’Arms Faculty Award for Distinguished Graduate Mentoring in the Humanities from the Rackham Graduate School, despite the chair and dean possessing reports of Hass’s misconduct.
American Culture’s current director of graduate studies, Stephen Berrey, is a white male professor, who has built his scholarly reputation on exposing the history of white complicity with racism and discrimination. However, Berrey rejected Professor Lawsin’s request that he end censorship of the report from the 2013 Rackham Program Review and conduct an investigation into both its suppression and the climate and equity problems it detailed. In a rebuke of his own scholarly principles, Berrey stated it was “beyond my scope to comment [on incidents] dated before my time as the Director of Graduate Studies began.”
Professors Kurashige and Lawsin were both stymied by officials in U-M’s Office for Institutional Equity (OIE), when they sought to request investigations by the university’s designated office for addressing racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. The complaint documents the role OIE has played to preserve false claims of diversity and equity on campus by covering up problems and conducting sham investigations to absolve U-M of responsibility.
In particular, U-M hired Pamela Heatlie to serve as one of its senior OIE investigators after she left her prior job in disgrace following a national scandal involving the cover up of hazing and abuse by the men’s hockey team at the University of Vermont. Following an extensive, formal investigation, Vermont’s attorney general concluded that Heatlie’s internal investigation “was insufficiently thorough to ascertain the truth and, as designed or conducted, served primarily to buttress the University’s position in the event of the filing of a civil lawsuit.”
With Heatlie serving as Deputy Title IX Coordinator, U-M was placed under federal investigation in 2014 for Title IX violations specifically related to mishandling investigations into sexual assault. Multiple students who reported sexual assault have publicly stated they have no confidence in U-M’s Title IX investigators, who are officially neutral but are seen to be protecting U-M. While moonlighting as a private consultant, Heatlie has undermined her neutrality as an OIE investigator; her bio read, “Since Pam joined the University of Michigan, none of the issues she has handled have resulted in successful litigation against the university.”
In 2015 Professor Lawsin was communicating privately and confidentially with Heatlie to prepare an OIE complaint against the Department of American Culture’s current and former department chairs. Before steps to formalize the complaint were completed, Heatlie disclosed her communications with Lawsin to the department chair, June Howard, and worked with Howard and other administrators to coordinate a “self-generated, administrative review” that found no evidence of discrimination or wrongdoing by the department. Heatlie’s review proceeded without any involvement by Kurashige or Lawsin, and she failed to interview key persons who experienced and witnessed the worst forms of discrimination and harassment in the department.
Patterns of Discrimination Against Scholars of Color
The complaint reveals an archived record dating back to the 1970s of white faculty opposing and denigrating the reputation of ethnic and “minority” studies. An acting director of American Culture described calls to expand ethnic studies as a campaign by “ethnocentric pressure groups on this campus… to pressure the Administration into academically unsound decisions.” She added that the presence of ethnic studies courses “weakens” American Culture. Another director opposed American Culture serving as a home to Asian American Studies because he believed doing so would come “at the expense of our current graduate students.”
Other white faculty members expressed concern that the U-M president’s 1988 “Michigan Mandate” initiative to promote “multicultural academic community” would undermine the “core” purpose of American Culture. David Hollinger (who later moved to UC Berkeley) called for the American Culture faculty “to make a very strong stand” by telling the dean of the college that they would “not accept additional minority positions.”
Current white faculty members with low-to-middling levels of scholarly achievement have promoted or taken advantage of discrimination against more accomplished faculty of color to advance into leadership positions within American Culture and gain higher salaries.
Gregory Dowd, a white male, was singled out for recruitment as Director of the Native American Studies Program (and later promoted to director/chair of American Culture) without more accomplished people of color and indigenous applicants being given equal consideration.
Kristin Hass, a white female with a PhD in American Culture from U-M, was hired through an abuse of the “target of opportunity” hiring procedure intended for highly selective hiring of academic “superstars” and underrepresented minorities.
At the time June Howard, a white female, was selected to be chair of American Culture in 2014, her curriculum vitae listed publication of only one book and three journal articles after 1985. Howard’s thin list of “awards” mainly consists of routine scholarly activities, such as “selected participant” for a seminar on literature. She does not list any significant awards for research throughout her entire career.
Some white faculty, including June Howard, have used language describing prospective ethnic studies hires and faculty of color as people who “don’t belong here” or “are not supposed to still be here.” In 2006, multiple faculty members stated that “white senior faculty” were “unsympathetic to junior faculty of color.” Faculty in American Culture have also named the perceived race/ethnicity of candidates for faculty hire, while arguing for or against their hire.
The department has regularly failed to take effective against racial discrimination or other improper hiring and retention practices. In one official faculty meeting, Dowd, presiding as department chair, expressed opposition to a faculty candidate by using language that multiple faculty members characterized as “xenophobic,” “alarmist,” and “racist.” In a later meeting, Dowd forced the department to address his moral objections to gay pornography referenced within a faculty candidate’s portfolio before he would allow a hiring discussion and vote to proceed.
Discrimination Against Professors Kurashige and Lawsin
Professor Kurashige won major campus and national awards, including the American Historical Association’s prestigious Beveridge Award (given to the best book on the Western Hemisphere from 1492 to the present) for The Shifting Grounds of Race (2008) and fellowships from Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution. However, he was repeatedly passed over for leadership positions, and his salary was kept at or near the bare minimum for his rank as his department and college downplayed his accomplishments. Kurashige’s groundbreaking co-authored book with the renowned Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution (2011), has sold 20,000 copies and placed his work in dialogue with leading intellectuals around the world. However, the American Culture faculty determined the book was “clearly” not “a major work of scholarship,” reducing it to “an example of a writing project that overlaps with Professor Kurashige’s community service and his pedagogy.”
U-M denied every attempt Professor Kurashige made to request a salary equity review. In direct contradiction of statements made to Kurashige by associate deans, Dean Andrew Martin of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) stated that the college did not have a salary equity review process that Kurashige could request. U-M made no retention offer to Kurashige, and Dean Martin even reneged on his offer to grant Kurashige a meeting.
Professor Lawsin (along with other women faculty and faculty candidates) has been systematically stigmatized and mistreated by being cast by American Culture department leaders as a “spousal hire.” One tenured faculty member sent an email to the department chair Dowd marked “CONFIDENTIAL: please print and delete this email” and encouraged him to share its contents with others in decision-making capacities. The email accused Lawsin of being a disruptive presence in faculty meetings based on the false allegation that she was constantly “bickering” with her spouse and exhibited behavior that was “intimate rather than professional.”
In violation of its bylaws, the department also excluded Professor Lawsin—based on retaliation and marital status discrimination— from key discussions and decisions that led to the undermining of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program, which she had played a central role in building. Following the deliberate marginalization and exclusion of Lawsin and Kurashige, the program’s activity level plummeted, student involvement evaporated, and communication with alumni ceased.
Retaliation Against Professors Kurashige and Lawsin
Professor Kurashige presented American Culture and LSA with extensive evidence of racial discrimination, and he advocated for African American, Arab American, Asian American, Latina/o, Native American, and Pacific Islander faculty and students (including job and grad school applicants) negatively impacted. In response, LSA Dean Terrence McDonald angrily stated that he was giving Kurashige “political demerits.” Department chair Gregory Dowd conspired with LSA Associate Dean Derek Collins to advance complaints against Kurashige based on false allegations, racial stereotypes, and extreme distortions.
These complaints and illicit communications served as the basis for U-M to terminate Professor Kurashige in December 2013 from the directorship of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program, which had enjoyed great success under his leadership. Neither Dowd nor Collins ever showed the complaints to Kurashige, informed him of their contents, or afforded him an opportunity to answer them. They eschewed all required university procedures that were necessary to generate negative action against Kurashige or place negative marks on his professional record. In a meeting that the Faculty Ombuds attended as a neutral observer, Collins admitted that he never substantiated any of the allegations he received from Dowd.
Professor Kurashige reported these violations of his rights and of university protocol to numerous U-M administrators, but none reported conducting any substantive investigation or took any effective action. The current chair of American Culture, June Howard, responded to Kurashige’s formal discrimination complaints by accusing him of “bullying” her. Citing no evidence and without referencing his strong teaching and mentoring records, Howard further stated that Kurashige posed a “potential safety risk” to students and invoked the U-M faculty “civility” code of professional standards specifying grounds for terminating a tenured faculty member. Howard also usurped Kurashige’s authority as chair of a faculty search committee, resulting in Howard presiding over the hire of her former student while rejecting all complaints of conflict of interest. During this time, faculty colleagues gave Kurashige the “silent treatment” and, to their own detriment, consciously opposed his input on all departmental matters, including those in which he was indisputably the leading scholarly expert. The effect was to make him feel so miserable and mistreated that he left U-M and vacated a tenured position at the rank of Professor through a constructive termination in summer 2014.
Multiple U-M officials subjected Professor Lawsin to harassment and mistreatment after she reported discrimination against herself and other faculty and students. While on protected leave under the Family Medical Leave Act to care for a baby with Down syndrome in winter 2015, Lawsin was sent a layoff notice from her departments with no prior warning and despite her strong, award-winning teaching record dating back to 2000. Lawsin successfully contested that layoff, but Howard then worked with U-M administrators to initiate steps toward termination by requiring her to submit to a remediation plan in February 2016. The same day, Howard sent Professor Lawsin a letter falsely accusing her of violating university policies for assigning a book that she had previously used in courses for 14 years with departmental knowledge and no objection. The university has barred her from teaching her classes scheduled for the current Winter 2017 Semester.
As Asian/Pacific Islander American students and alumni of the University of Michigan, we are called to action as we witness everything we love about our campus and nation coming under assault. We are moved to join with and help lead the majority of Wolverines and Americans who say “no” to racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, religious intolerance, ableism and bigotry of all kinds. “Go Blue” must be a rallying cry for democracy, for social justice and for science and education in the public interest.
Our open letter was published in the Michigan Daily, University of Michigan’s student paper. Support the alumni petition to strengthen A/PIA Studies!
Open Letter from Alumni: Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies is the Way Forward
Posted: November 17, 2016
A/PIA STUDIES IS KEY TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION FOR U-M AND AMERICA
As Asian/Pacific Islander American students and alumni of the University of Michigan, we are called to action as we witness everything we love about our campus and nation coming under assault. We are moved to join with and help lead the majority of Wolverines and Americans who say NO to racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, religious intolerance, ableism, and bigotry of all kinds. GO BLUE must be a rallying cry for democracy, for social justice, and for science and education in the public interest.
We have seen a Presidential campaign motivated by scapegoating, hatred, and revenge manifest on our campus as a domestic terrorism campaign of white supremacist posters and hate crimes against our communities. While there are new threats we must name and confront, we must not forget that our fight against racist ignorance and attacks on campus, in Ann Arbor, and in the U.S. goes back decades. Those in power have never guaranteed safe spaces for our communities. We are the ones who have fought and organized to create our own spaces of consciousness, liberation, and solidarity.
That is why we need Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies now more than ever. A/PIA Studies and Ethnic Studies were born out of the struggle against global and domestic warfare and oppression, when student activists demanded a relevant education that overturned Eurocentric biases and reflected the diverse perspectives and concerns of our communities. We are a product of that struggle, and no analysis of racism, intersectionality, or social justice would be possible today without it.
At the height of A/PIA Studies at UM, we were part of a nationally renowned program offering a wide range of courses addressing race and justice. We had engaged faculty whose activities extended far beyond the classroom and whose mentoring served our organizations and programs on nights and weekends. Although A/PIA Studies had limited resources, no office space, and no staff, we worked with these faculty to build cultural and educational programs, including conferences that drew 500 or more people from diverse backgrounds to address the social issues that impact us and the entire nation.
We had the incredible honor to learn from and work with community leaders, including the legendary scholar-activist, Grace Lee Boggs. Grace taught us, “You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it, and responsible for changing it.” Our education has been our foundation, as we have become socially-conscious alumni, community organizers, educators, policy-makers, professionals, attorneys, health care providers, parents, and much more.
We want and need to today’s students to benefit from A/PIA Studies in this way. Since 2013, A/PIA Studies has been reduced to a shadow of its former self due to top-down decisions by administrators lacking proper knowledge and expertise to appreciate the program’s value and potential. The most dedicated faculty have been fired or pushed away. The classes and programs we built up have disappeared. Because of this, the climate for A/PIA students and everyone at UM has become less inclusive and more hostile. Our efforts to get answers and provide support for rebuilding the program have been tokenized and ignored.
The A/PIA Studies Program was once a social justice leader on campus. Its professors were always at the forefront of organizing teach-ins in response to national crises, supporting student organizations, advocating for students of color, defending survivors of hate crimes and sexual assault, and holding the administration accountable to its diversity promises. Our campus and our nation need a renewal of that vital presence.
We are encouraged to see the October 2016 “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan” of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts finally recognize that past leadership failures have made minoritized students, staff, and faculty feel “isolated and disrespected based on their social identities” and suffer “depression and stigmatization resulting from a lack of understanding and compassion.” LSA has specifically acknowledged that “Asian and Asian-American faculty, students, and staff have felt left out of the conversation altogether.”
But we’ve already heard countless promises about diversity, equity, and inclusion from leadership. This time MUST be different. LSA’s Strategic Plan does not in any way name how its prior missteps undermined A/PIA Studies, and its “36 Strategic Goals” do not commit to any positive steps to rebuild and promote the program. Three years of slow progress, inadequate measures, and a lack of transparency are too much.
LSA and UM must recognize the incredible past accomplishments of A/PIA Studies and make it a cornerstone of the campaign for diversity, equity, and inclusion. UM has the power within its grasp to restore its national leadership in the field of A/PIA Studies. This is a WIN-WIN solution for us, for our university, and for our nation.
We call on students, alumni, faculty, staff, and off-campus supporters from all backgrounds to embrace the following proposals. We commit ourselves not only to implementing these steps but also to working with everyone struggling to move diversity, equity, and inclusion from the realm of rhetoric to reality.
1) We call for the full restoration of the 8 full-time faculty in Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies that have been lost since 2008, including the restoration of the courses, scholarly expertise, and student mentoring that has been lost.
2) We call for the university to meet the demand for staff, funding, and physical space that students, faculty, and staff deem necessary to fulfill the curricular and co-curricular needs of A/PIA Studies and related A/PIA cultural programming and activities.
3) We call for a restoration of direct involvement by students (undergraduate and graduate), alumni, staff, and community allies in setting priorities, decision-making, and governance of the A/PIA Studies Program.
4) We call for institutional structures that ensure the A/PIA Studies Program has the autonomy to be led by its own stakeholders who are central to the work of the program and possess the expertise needed to promote its success. We can never again allow A/PIA Studies to be undermined by short-sighted administrators or department chairs that lack the best interests of the program.
5) We call for the formation of a commission of external Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies experts to identify additional steps UM must take to become “the leaders and the best” in Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. This commission must outline a pathway for A/PIA Studies to achieve departmental status.
(Note: This letter has been submitted to the Michigan Daily.)
Join the undersigned and add your name in support of A/PIA Studies now!
