We oppose the institutional dismantling of University of Michigan's Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program. We are former students of UM and do not claim to represent or speak on behalf of the University of Michigan.
Update on Kurashige and Lawsin v. University of Michigan
On December 2, the lawsuit brought forth by Professors Scott Kurashige and Emily Lawsin went to trial. After several weeks of arguments and cross-examination, we are now awaiting the final verdict to be delivered by the jury. We share a direct update from the students who have been closely monitoring the court proceedings below. Please stay tuned for updates on the lawsuit.
A Message from University of Michigan A/PIA Student Activists:
After closing arguments on Wednesday, the jury will resume at 8:30AM on Friday to continue deliberating whether the University is guilty of multiple counts of misconduct regarding discrimination against Emily Lawsin and Scott Kurashige. The #UmichIsComplicit campaign would like to take this waiting period to thank every single student, community member, and alumni that has contributed to a powerful presence in court, on social media, in the news, at events, and many other countless measures to support Professor Lawsin and Professor Kurashige. The impact of student pressure on the University during this case was evident, which is a small win that we should celebrate.
Overall, the University’s closing arguments were filled with false statements that held no water and only served to propagate white supremacy and ableism: stating that the University adhering to the disability act is them being “generous,” and alleging that there was absolutely no discrimination at all - citing that it is not possible for people in American Culture to be discriminatory or racist because their work is “fighting for minorities and their plights.”
Further, University lawyers used some of their limited time to attempt to discredit student advocates who have been involved in these A/PIA Studies “personnel affairs,” which is fallacious when most of this campaign’s organizers are enrolled in A/PIA Studies, hold Asian American identities, and/ or are our allies. The A/PIA Studies program’s existence and growth has been and is in direct tandem to Asian American and Pacific Islander student activism, so discrediting student advocates in A/PIA Studies personnel affairs is a fallacious attack that displays a lack of understanding on how to support our program. Student activism founded HolidAPA, created the minor, has led to most every faculty expansion, including the present push for ethnic studies sub majors - though much of this work has been claimed by the University. The University’s attempt at erasure and to discredit student activism organized around A/PIA studies is not only fallacious, but also indicative of the Administration’s hypocrisy. If the students that have taken classes and minored in A/PIA Studies do not have a stake in discrimination regarding faculty that have taught and mentored individuals in the program, then the vast presence of faculty in court is completely unwarranted.
Yesterday, high ranking faculty, from former and current American Culture chair Gregory Dowd and Film, Television, & Media chair Yeidy Rivero, sat in the courtroom stands while laughing out loud to each other as our lawyer was detailing the emotional and financial damages regarding Professor Lawsin, according to multiple student accounts. From the chair of the American Culture department that houses the A/PIA Studies program, to the chair for the Film department that neither Professor Lawsin nor Professor Kurashige are affiliated to, this Administrative faculty’s exhibition of this racially charged behavior in front of A/PIA Studies students is inappropriate, especially when the University lawyers invalidate student advocates. We have been watching those who have been fighting against us and this case, and we will not forget. It is an expectation of Asian American and Pacific Islander submission to think that we would not have merit in resisting these strong, widespread institutional forces that are working against us.
The University’s contradictory strategies to manipulate A/PIA Studies were uncovered through their lawyers’ closing arguments today, which would not have been possible without the willingness of students to support this campaign for years, including now through the time of classes ending and finals. Instead of wondering why students were pushed to act, the University attempted to submit our own statements and social media posts into evidence, arguing that we were being puppeteered by Professors Lawsin and Kurashige. We have been strong advocates because Professors Emily Lawsin and Scott Kurashige are undoubtedly fighting for students, despite the accusations and arguments from the University. It is the University that is hurting students, specifically A/PIA Studies students, through this process. And as we have discovered from the depositions, students are being hurt throughout our campus at the actions and inactions of our administration. We must be prioritized, and we must continue to stand in solidarity and fight alongside faculty who fight for us. The verdict is no longer in our hands, but regardless of the result, we celebrate the education and passion that has resulted from student activism, and we look forward to continuing to work together against a University that is against us: and in support of those in our community.
University of Michigan students, faculty and community members discussed discrimination and “sham” investigations at the “UM: Corruption, Complicity, Coverups” town hall in Weill Hall Sunday night. The event was hosted by UMich is Complicit: a movement dedicated to combating discriminatory hiring practices and sexual misconduct policies at the University.
University of Michigan continues pattern of rewarding faculty and staff who have been charged with discrimination
The University of Michigan Regents recently approved the surprise appointment of Anne Curzan to be the head dean of LSA (Effective Sept. 1, 2019). Curzan had previously been Associate Dean for Humanities in LSA where she oversaw American Culture (AC). She also oversaw Professor Emily Lawsin's failed lecturer review (because the associate dean of Social Sciences was from Women's Studies and had to recuse herself). Curzan played a central role in the improper appointment of John Kuwada to be A/PIA Studies director, covered up the violations of bylaws in his appointment, told the faculty on LSA's executive committee to ignore Emily Lawsin's legitimate complaint because she had a lawsuit against UM, then admitted in a smoking gun email that she was abusing attorney-client privilege to cover-up the cover-up.
All this makes Curzan's appointment, which is scheduled to take effect on September 1st, incredibly controversial and improper. Additionally, when LSA promoted Curzan to be head Dean, they moved the chair of American Culture (Alexandra Stern) into Curzan's former position as Associate Dean for Humanities (the first time anyone from AC has held this position, so it is not a coincidence), and they brought back Gregory Dowd (who removed Scott Kurashige as director of A/PIA Studies) to be interim chair of AC. Such actions suggest that U-M only trusts white people who have been charged with discrimination to be in leadership positions.
The following summarizes information related to Curzan’s misconduct in the public record:
Under Curzan’s Leadership, LSA Retaliated Against Professor Emily Lawsin
Curzan’s favorable treatment of the white male faculty member who admitted to sexual misconduct stands in stark contrast to her treatment of Professor Emily Lawsin, a women of color who is an expert on race and gender and has been highly sought out as a mentor by students of color. After Professor Lawsin made complaints of a hostile race climate and discrimination against herself and other minoritized faculty and students, Curzan played a central role in imposing discipline and moves to terminate Professor Lawsin based on fabricated allegations and flagrant violations of LSA procedure. Curzan and the department chairs who reported to her insisted that the bogus disciplinary actions against Professor Lawsin were central to her review for contract renewal in 2017-18 and that they overshadowed her excellent scholarly record. As a result, LSA denied her standard 5-year reappointment, meaning that she is subject to dismissal in 2020 and was denied even the normal raise she was due to receive.
Curzan Helped Cover Up Discrimination and Misconduct Within American Culture
After Professor Lawsin attempted to initiate a formal investigation into the discrimination and hostile climate that she and many others endured, Curzan played an integral role in the sham “administrative review” of American Culture and A/PIA Studies during the 2015-16 academic year. Violating University procedures for investigations and standards of neutrality, this sham review doctored statistical evidence to cover-up racial disparities in faculty retention and reported that whites complained of being bullied within Ethnic Studies programs. The sham review, whose conclusions Curzan fully endorsed, also covered-up all evidence of complaints against white department chairs and senior faculty that had been raised by numerous sources, while reporting in a Trump-style, knee-jerk reaction that Professor Lawsin and her partner were the ones responsible for the hostile climate within American Culture and A/PIA Studies.
Curzan Promoted White Faculty Charged with Discrimination
In the aftermath of the sham review of American Culture, multiple faculty and students currently or formerly affiliated with the department have come forward to deliver sworn testimony and written statements to the problems with discrimination and hostile climate that Curzan has refused to acknowledge or remedy.
Kristin Hass was charged by multiple PhD students of color and faculty of color with abusive, discriminatory and/or retaliatory conduct as an instructor (2009-10), chair of PhD admissions (2012-13), and Director of Graduate Studies (2012-15). Curzan rewarded Hass with a promotion to a leadership position within LSA, where Hass now oversees millions of dollars of grants for the Humanities Collaboratory. On top of the serious complaints from people of color, Hass’s academic record is marked by noticeable lapses, which should disqualify from continued employment, let alone leadership, within the University. Hass has never published a journal article throughout her entire academic career. Most disturbingly, Hass admitted under cross-examination that she was Improperly enrolled in the University’s American Culture PhD program for 2-3 years prior to completing her B.A. degree and that she has never previously disclosed this wanton violation of academic integrity and misrepresentation of credentials.
As American Culture chair from 2007 to 2013, Gregory Dowd was extensively criticized by AC faculty for his “nontransparent and undemocratic leadership” and chaged with discriminating against multiple faculty of color seeking retention offers. In his treatment of women he outranked, Dowd was prone to be “insensitive,” “hostile,” “argumentative,” “visibly angered,” “very upset,” and to raise his voice with no awareness of the power imbalance. Curzan recently appointed Dowd to return as interim chair of American Culture, marking 12 consecutive years of white faculty chairing a department whose faculty and PhD students are majority people of color.
Curzan Undermined the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program
Through 2013, the University of Michigan’s Asian/Pacific Islander American (A/PIA) Studies Program was recognized nationally as a leader in its areas of scholarship and was widely supported by students and alumni. However, the program suffered severe losses of senior faculty and a sharp decline in activity after LSA to silence A/PIA faculty and students who reported problems with discrimination and a hostile climate. Curzan’s retaliatory acts have occurred in response to Professor Lawsin’s exposure of LSA’s misconduct regarding A/PIA Studies. In particular, Curzan acted to ensure that LSA’s Executive Committee approved the appointment of a Director of A/PIA Studies whom the University admits has no record of research or teaching experience in the field and, in fact, “doesn't know the content of the courses” in the program he directed.
Curzan Has Undermined Faculty Governance
The University’s principles of Shared Governance state that the faculty hold “primary responsibility” to make “fundamental” academic decisions based on scholarly knowledge and expertise. There now exist in the public record smoking gun emails that Curzan, in May 2017, directed the faculty elected to serve on LSA’s Executive Committee to ignore evidence that Professor Lawsin presented, which demonstrated that the Director of A/PIA Studies was being appointed in flagrant violation of bylaws and fundamental academic standards. Curzan drew attention to the fact that Professor Lawsin had a “pending lawsuit” against, a fact which was wholly improper for her to introduce into an academic deliberation and also irrelevant to determining whether the information Professor Lawsin reported was accurate. Curzan was, in effect, steering the Executive Committee away from academic considerations and forcing them to consider the University’s interest in defending against a lawsuit.
Curzan Abused Attorney-Client Privilege to Cover Up Her Misconduct
When Curzan informed the LSA Executive Committee of Professor Lawsin’s “pending lawsuit,” she went an egregious step further by explicitly stating that she had “cc-ed Christine Gerdes, who is representing UM.” Gerdes, who is now “Special Counsel to the Provost,” was then an attorney in the Office of General Counsel assigned to monitor Professor Lawsin and combat any complaint she issued. In a correlated email written to Gerdes (and LSA’s James Burkel, a lawyer by training who served as a labor relations official assigned to monitor Professor Lawsin) on May 27, 2017, Curzan disclosed that her purpose in copying Gerdes on the email was to “make it privileged.” This was later ruled by the court to be an improper assertion of attorney-client privilege, which is the only reason this email is now in the public record. Even moreso, Curzan’s action was monumentally unethical—the obvious implication being that she feared exposing her misconduct to public records requests or legal discovery. Notably absent from their exchange is any discussion about how the A/PIA director appointment would impact students or the quality of education at the University. Finally, Curzan in amoral language implied that it was routine for her to “make” emails privileged in this way. As such, it is likely she has more skeletons in the closet.
Curzan Has Failed Survivors of Racism and Hate Crimes
Following the wave of racist hate crimes that struck on campus during Trump’s presidential campaign and after his election, students of color pushed the Department of Women’s Studies to issue a statement of solidarity with students of color and a call for the University to take effective against the many forms of racism that are prevalent within the institution. While Curzan was responsible for oversight of Women’s Studies, LSA banned the department from posting or circulating the anti-racism statement or anything deemed to be too political. Given her weak-kneed response to a major outbreak of racist terror, there is ample reason to fear that Curzan will continue to violate free speech and academic freedom by suppressing calls for action to combat racism and other forms of oppression within the University.
Why Did the University of Michigan Hire and Promote a Title IX and Civil Rights Investigator with a Checkered Past?
Through an explosive civil rights lawsuit, award-winning professors Scott Kurashige and Emily Lawsin argue that newly released documents expose systematic misconduct by high-level administrators at the University of Michigan. Based on unprecedented findings through discovery, the plaintiffs argue that UM’s procedures for investigating and remedying racial discrimination, sexual assault, and other protected class interests are not only ineffective but actually function to undermine complaints and enable retaliation against complainants.
In 2017, UM claimed Pamela Heatlie was the “top candidate after a national search” for the university’s Title IX Coordinator and Senior Director of the Office for Institutional Equity (OIE). Heatlie’s promotion to this position occurred despite numerous complaints about investigations being raised during her previous 12 years with OIE. Amid a slew of growing Title IX and civil rights controversies, Heatlie stepped down as the head of OIE in October 2018 with no public announcement by the UM administration.
Bombshell #2: UM Knew of Major Scandal Linked to Heatlie’s Prior Employment
Prior to being hired by UM, Heatlie had been a central figure in a national scandal reported by the New York Times, Washington Post, and many others. In 2000, the Attorney General of Vermont did a formal investigation into rampant hazing by the University of Vermont’s hockey team. As the UVM’s attorney with
primary responsibility for investigating complaints of rampant hazing, Heatlie asserted that her purpose was “to find the facts and not to buttress the University’s position in the civil dispute,” which arose after one of the student-athletes who was hazed sued the UVM. From the attorney general’s report:
One of the attorney general’s key findings directly repudiated Heatlie’s central argument:
Why would UM hire someone with such a tainted record for a prominent position protecting civil rights and upholding Title IX? What message does that send to survivors of discrimination and sexual assault.
The Plaintiffs argue in their complaint and briefs that Heatlie continued at Michigan to play the conflicted role of the investigator helping “to buttress the University’s position in the event of the filing of a civil lawsuit.” In fact, while moonlighting at a firm called Margolis-Healy, Heatlie supplied a bio for her work as a private consultant implying that preventing “successful litigation against the university” was a goal of her work at OIE.
Are we to believe that an institution with stature and resources of the University of Michigan could not or would not find someone for this leadership position without a controversial public record, or is this in indication of severely misguided priorities?
Documents from the lawsuit are on file in the public record under Case Number 16-1111-CD. We are sharing some of the most eye-opening excerpts from the over 2,000 pages recently filed, which collectively read like a Mueller report on corruption in academia. Please check this page regularly for updates.
Bombshells and Smoking Guns: The Mueller Report of Academia
Through an explosive civil rights lawsuit, award-winning professors Scott Kurashige and Emily Lawsin argue that newly released documents expose systematic misconduct by high-level administrators at the University of Michigan.
Based on unprecedented findings through discovery, the plaintiffs argue that UM’s procedures for investigating and remedying racial discrimination, sexual assault, and other protected class interests are not only ineffective but actually function to undermine complaints and enable retaliation against complainants. While surveys indicate over 3,000 students are sexually assaulted each year at UM, the latest annual Title IX report revealed the university conducted only twenty investigations for all forms of sexual misconduct and failed to substantiate any sexual assault violations.
Bombshell #1:
Under cross-examination, UM’s former Title IX coordinator, Anthony Walesby, admitted that information obtained from rape survivors through ostensibly “neutral” Title IX investigations could as a matter of course be shared with the UM attorneys, knowing that such information could be used against survivors in a civil court case. All this would be done without the knowledge or consent of the survivors.
From the transcript of Walesby’s deposition:
The Michigan Daily and others have reported students being dismayed and alarmed by “the runaround” they endured after filing bias complaints through the university’s Office for Institutional Equity. Plaintiffs assert there is no place where any member of the UM community can request a protected class investigation without being secretly subjected to review and intervention by UM’s lawyers. Furthermore, they argue that UM officials have wantonly abused attorney-client privilege to cover-up misconduct by administrators regarding academic appointments and other sensitive matters.
The Washtenaw County Circuit Court has ruled that Kurashige and Lawsin have won their right to go to trial against UM for discrimination and retaliation under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act. The trial is scheduled to begin July 1, 2019. Plaintiffs are represented by Detroit-based Attorney Alice B. Jennings, who has been honored by the NAACP, Black Women Lawyers Association, and National Lawyers Guild for her civil rights advocacy.
Documents from the lawsuit are on file in the public record under Case Number 16-1111-CD. We are sharing some of the most eye-opening excerpts from the over 2,000 pages recently filed, which collectively read like a Mueller report on corruption in academia. Please check this page regularly for updates.
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
A/PIA community rallies after Lawsin contract renewal denied by 'U'
“I think the pattern of discrimination and filing things on faculty of color or students of color who speak up is a growing problem that stretches back years and years,” Lawsin said. “But the University would like to cover that up.”
Read the full article at the Michigan Daily here.
The Michigan Daily is investigating other claims of racial prejudice in the American Culture department and throughout the University, including Kurashige’s experience with the administration. Look for additional articles on the topic to follow next semester.
Alumni Voices: Together, We Rise — A Letter if support for Professor Emily Lawsin
By Kan Yan, University of Michigan, Class of 2008
The first time I met Professor Emily Lawsin was in college, when she was performing for a Filipino cultural event at the University of Michigan. Despite watching the fast-paced snapping of bamboo sticks in Tinikling, or the collective nail-biting that accompanies the "pandanggo sa ilaw", where dancers move with candles balanced on their heads, the most engaging performance of the entire show was not from a group, but instead, from a woman with boundless optimism and energy.
Professor Lawsin entranced her audience with her poetry, as she reminisced about her culture, embraced her American experience, and shouted down injustice. Through her spoken word performance, I could hear the suffering of our past, the anger at our mistreatment, and the hope that future generations would not have to endure the same hardships. I could see my own Chinese heritage resonate in the struggles of Filipinos/Filipinas in the United States-- that, despite our different backgrounds, we all shared the experience of being Asian-American. It was the first time I understood that the A/PIA community either rises or falls together, and that the rights of minorities are not given, but rather, hard-fought through the struggles of generations past and the painful lessons endured by our ancestors.
Professor Lawsin's performance was also a reminder of how easily those rights could be taken away: how, if the current generation is not taught about our history, and does not continue to fight for respect and understanding in the public consciousness, misguided and racist policies such as The Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese internment camps can once again arise. Justice is earned, but division and discord are freely spread: it is much easier to sow hate than to find love for those different from you. The fabric of the United States is and has always been enriched by our diversity, as each successive wave of immigrants, including those from many Asian countries, enriches the American melting pot with their own contributions. Professor Lawsin's performance was a powerful statement that, when we reject diversity or only embrace the experience of a certain ethnic or cultural group, we are denying the very identity of America itself.
Throughout the remainder of my college career, my interactions with Professor Lawsin always affirmed the importance of diversity and the criticality of understanding the cultures, customs, and history of all of the disparate groups that make our nation great. I did not pursue a career in social activism; nonetheless, I am continually reminded of the lessons I learned from her and her impact me, to this day, in the world of engineering. As a federal civil servant working in our nation's space program, I am proud that my agency embraces and emphasizes the importance of diversity in its hiring and training. Working at the cutting edge of science and technology requires innovative ideas to address those problems that may require new inventions or processes, or to anticipate the questions that may arise years down the road based on our research path.
Every day, I observe diversity being a huge asset to the way we work: diversity in expertise and in thought process, brought forth by diversity in background and upbringing, lead to new concepts and out-of-the-box solutions. In a dynamic and changing field that requires excellence in all that we do, it allows us to continuously evolve in the way we develop our spacecraft and refine the science questions we ask. Diversity keeps us ahead as a nation. My agency's own experience with how rewarding a diverse workforce can be is based on the tireless advocacy of social justice champions such as Professor Lawsin. It is imperative that we do not backtrack on all the gains we made: the teaching of our diverse history and our continued stance against injustice are critical steps to our collective social awareness and future as a country.
- Visit the A/PIA Tumblr Page to learn more about the struggle for diversity, fairness, and inclusion faced by Professor Lawsin and students and faculty of color
- Sign the student and alumni petition to support Professor Lawsin and the future of Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies
Written by Kan Yan
University of Michigan, Class of 2008
FASA Alumnus
Aerospace Engineer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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].
Fact-Checking UM’s National Center for Institutional Diversity Podcast ‘Myths and Legends’
We recently came across the “Myths and Legends” podcast produced by University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID), which purports to summarize the history of Asian American Studies at the University of Michigan. Upon listening to the podcast, we found glaring errors and omissions about how Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies has evolved. This is alarming in light of the program’s current decline and gives evidence to the active promotion of falsehoods about its history.
Alumni and current students have launched a campaign to fully restore A/PIA Studies.
Below, we fact-check several statements expressed in the podcast.
“After building the program for 10 years, both professors left the University of Michigan in 1999. Dr. Stillman, being the only tenured faculty member at that time, stepped up to fill the role of director for the program.”
FALSE: Dr. Stillman was one of multiple tenured faculty associates affiliated with the A/PA Studies Program. Only in the process of becoming director did she become a core faculty member.
“Six hiring offers were made with three new hires in 2000 leading to the rebirth of the A/PIA program.”
FALSE: The authors need to clarify their claim, but it is at best misleading and at worst false. Phillip Akutsu was hired in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2000. Scott Kurashige and Emily Lawsin were hired and joined the faculty in 2000. Susan Najita was hired in 2000 and joined the faculty in 2001. One of these four faculty members is being excluded from the record. To clarify, three faculty joined the faculty in 2000 (Akutsu, Kurashige, Lawsin). Three faculty were hired in 2000 (Kurashige, Lawsin, Najita).
ERASED FROM HISTORY: There is no mention by name within the text, timeline, or audio podcast of most of the key A/PIA Studies faculty who were integral to the development of the program from 2000 to 2013. This is a glaring omission.
“1994: Paperwork completed to name program (Asian / Pacific American Studies Program).”
TRUE: However, this fact exposes the errant date that the official website for the U-M Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program lists for its founding: “Established in 1989, the Asian/Pacific Islander American (A/PIA) Studies program is one of four ethnic studies programs housed within the Department of American Culture.”
“2000: Program Enhancement Initiative active on campus, which enabled A/PIA to be considered a tenure home for faculty members. Enabled the department to extend additional faculty offers.”
FALSE: A/PIA Studies is neither an enhanced program nor department, and it has never served as a tenure home for faculty members. The College of LSA has explicitly rejected proposals from A/PIA Studies faculty and students to make the program a department and a tenure home. The College of LSA has forced A/PIA Studies to be dependent on one or more sponsoring academic units (e.g. Psychology Department) to make faculty hires. This has repeatedly created roadblocks to faculty hires, as a wide range of departments—often times ignorant of scholarly concerns in the field or hostile to A/PIA Studies—have been granted veto power over any A/PIA Studies faculty hire. Most departments at U-M have never hired—or even seriously considered for hire—any faculty member with expertise in A/PIA Studies to date.
“2012: Amy Stillman returns to position of A/PIA director”
FALSE: Amy Stillman was not director in 2012. Scott Kurashige was director in 2012, and this was during the highest period of student minor declarations in A/PIA Studies, alumni involvement, fundraising, and public programs.
Reverse the decline of UM’s A/PIA Studies Program and sign the petition to fully restore A/PIA Studies.
"As a LSA alum, some of my dearest University of Michigan memories involve Emily Lawsin, a professor of Asian/Pacific Islander American studies, shouting out her truth."
We will no longer be quietly betrayed by the “Michigan difference” — the University’s public praise of diversity, devalued by behind-the-scenes retaliation against educators and students of color.
Read Michigan alumna Aisa Villarosa’s full op-ed in the Michigan Daily in support of Professor Emily Lawsin and Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at UM.
Stand up for A/PIA Studies by signing the petition to University of Michigan administrators to fully restore the A/PIA Studies Program!
UPDATE: University of Michigan’s Discrimination Against Professor Emily Lawsin
FACT SHEET: THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN’S DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PROFESSOR EMILY LAWSIN
For the past 18 years, Emily Lawsin has been an influential Asian American scholar and teacher as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Women’s Studies and Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. Professor Lawsin is an expert in the study of women of color, Filipino Americans, immigration, feminism, and community activism. With her classes in high demand and regularly oversubscribed, she has received multiple awards and recognitions for her teaching and public service. On a campus where students of color are severely underrepresented and regularly report enduring a hostile climate, Professor Lawsin is a much sought out and cherished mentor. She is an acclaimed poet and widely hailed for her public speaking, social justice work in Detroit, and national advocacy on behalf of Filipino Americans and Asian American women.
EMPLOYMENT STATUS: U-M DISTORTS LAWSIN’S RECORDS AND DISREGARDS UNIVERSITY PROCEDURES
Professor Lawsin’s “Level IV” lecturer status, the highest rank for lecturers within the university system, guarantees a “presumption of renewal.”. This is the closest thing to tenure. Therefore, her two departments took an extraordinarily adverse action when they twice voted to recommend her termination in November 2017 and February 2018. The College of LSA did vote to terminate her in March 2018.
Revoking her right to a “presumption of renewal,” Professor Lawsin’s departments conducted her most recent review as though to build a case against her renewal. They overlooked overwhelming evidence of her scholarly merit. Distorting her record and repeatedly violating multiple university guidelines and procedures, the departments have issued the following so-called core evidence against Professor Lawsin:
a) The departments claim that Professor Lawsin focuses too much on “the Filipino experience” in her classes.
b) When taking sick/medical leave that was fully reviewed and approved by the university, Professor Lawsin was then accused of causing a “disruption” to her classes. The departments further cite a drop in student course ratings as evidence against her — when, at that time, Professor Lawsin was ordered off work by her doctor during a high-risk pregnancy and gave birth to a child with Down syndrome and potentially life-threatening health conditions.
c) The department chairs exposed Professor Lawsin to discrimination and retaliation by adding improper and inflammatory “supplemental” materials to her review file that disclosed her medical history and included extensive personal correspondence highlighting policy disagreements she had with current and former department chairs.
RACE/GENDER DISCRIMINATION AND RETALIATION
Professor Lawsin has made multiple complaints to university officials indicating a hostile race climate at U-M and a pattern of racial discrimination in faculty retention within the College of LSA. The Department of American Culture has terminated or failed to retain 20 faculty of color since just before she was hired, leaving white employees overrepresented among the senior faculty and leadership. U-M has gone to great lengths to disregard this revolving door of faculty of color and deny its relationship to disparate treatment.
The department stigmatized the most vocal graduate students and faculty of color, deeming them the source of the “climate problem.” On the other hand, it promoted white faculty who were the subject of complaints of racial insensitivity or complicit in covering up harassment of people of color. Departmental leaders introduced biases in PhD admissions against “queer of color” and undocumented students. To prevent an honest and transparent discussion of its problems, the department censored and distorted official climate studies and reviews, while secretly communicating a narrative rooted in white fragility to senior administrators.
U-M’s FLAWED RESPONSES TO SEXUAL ASSAULT AND HARASSMENT
Based on surveys and assessments endorsed by the administration, over 3,000 students are sexually assaulted each school year at the University of Michigan. However, U-M’s Office for Institutional Equity found only five student sexual assault violations in the past year. Moreover, senior administrators have pressured the Department of Women’s Studies to stand by U-M’s failed actions and policies to combat sexual assault and harassment. Professor Lawsin has been subject to retaliation for her proactive advocacy to address these alarming problems. In Fall 2015—before the #MeToo campaign went viral or the Larry Nassar scandal at Michigan State University was exposed—Professor Lawsin, as an elected member of the Women’s Studies executive committee, made a motion for the department to issue a solidarity statement with sexual assault survivors and call for more effective action from the university. Contradicting its mission stating that it is “dedicated” to feminist “activism” and committed to “challenge power inequities,” the Department of Women’s Studies rejected her resolution, effectively covering up UM’s flawed responses to sexual assault and harassment.
UNDERMINING ASIAN/PACIFIC ISLANDER AMERICAN STUDIES
Professor Lawsin played a central role in rebuilding the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program, which has been repeatedly undermined by loss of faculty, decline of public events, and the refusal of U-M leaders to appoint a director with research and teaching experience in the field. Professor Lawsin has presented evidence that senior administrators and faculty have violated U-M procedures and bylaws in appointing directors and marginalizing her presence within the program. Students and alumni, who have been shut out of meaningful involvement in the program, have circulated an open letter calling for faculty hires, resources, accountability, and external review. Representative Stephanie Chang, alumnus and elected member of the Michigan State House of Representatives, has also issued a pointed statementx in response.
ONGOING CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE
Every attempt Professor Lawsin made to have these matters investigated or redressed by her supervisors and senior university administrators resulted in dismissive or retaliatory action. One department chair scolded her in writing for using a “tone” characterized as “uncollegial and troubling.” At the same time, department chairs endorsed senior faculty writing emails and making statements defaming Professor Lawsin behind her back.
For these reasons, Professor Lawsin was moved to file a civil rights lawsuit against the University of Michigan in December 2016. The case, currently in discovery, effectively functions like a class action lawsuit. Vowing to fight “vigorously” against the legal complaint, U-M is actively repudiating the civil rights of faculty of color at the same time that President Mark Schlissel is directly engaged in extended negotiations to uphold the rights of white supremacist Richard Spencer. Professor Lawsin and co-plaintiff Scott Kurashige are working to expose university-wide practices and the conduct of senior administrative leaders to scrutiny within the justice system. They are seeking transformative structural changes to ensure equity and inclusion for all members of protected classes.
For more information:
74-page complaint—filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on December 5, 2016
To sign the petition in support of A/PIA Studies: https://www.change.org/p/fully-restore-university-of-michigan-s-asian-pacific-islander-american-studies
University of Michigan LSA Dean Promotes Ignorance of A/PIAs
If you are worried that the dissemination of “alternative facts” is undermining intelligent discourse and threatening our democracy, we advise you to pay closer to attention to LSA’s attempts to eliminate and distort the history of Asian/Pacific Islander Americans (A/PIA) at U-M.
Recently (Friday, March 10), LSA Dean Andrew Martin sent an email for mass distribution in which he announced “the first-ever campus-wide convening of students, faculty, and staff for an afternoon of informal meet-and-greet networking, information sharing, and structured conversations on issues of concern to Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities across campus.”
Apparently, Dean Martin has just discovered the A/PIA community the same way Columbus “discovered” America. The flyer Martin attached says the summit will discuss the “History of APIAs at U-M.” However, his misleading announcement suggests this will be a whitewashing of history.
As members of a network of A/PIA alumni and former student leaders, we are here to tell Martin that our community has convened dozens of campus-wide gatherings of student, staff, and faculty for over four decades. Not coincidentally, overcoming LSA’s lack of support for A/PIA Studies and lack of awareness of A/PIA concerns has been a central impetus for these regular convenings.
To erase the history of A/PIA organizing at U-M is to ignore the collective struggles we have fought against Eurocentrism, hate crimes, and institutional racism, while fighting for ethnic studies, affirmative action, and social justice. This erasure reinforces the model minority stereotype of Asians as passive and conservative, thus fostering divisions between the A/PIA community and other communities of color.
In recent years, A/PIA students, faculty, and staff organized a series of campus-wide summits, conferences, and events in response to LSA’s failure to retain A/PIA Studies faculty, which reached a crisis point starting in 2011. Within an eight-month period, the United Asian American Organizations, the A/PIA Studies Program, and Multi-ethnic Studies Affairs convened two summits, one strategy session, one community conversation, and an Asian American activism conference, where five hundred attendees addressed both campus and community issues.
Participants included prominent A/PIA scholars, artists, organizers, and off-campus leaders, including a U.S. congressman and a state senator. Two presenters have since been elected to the Michigan House of Representatives and Philadelphia City Council. These gatherings also addressed the lack of space for A/PIA and student of color organizations on campus, as well as the problem of a hostile campus climate.
To pretend that events of this magnitude never happened demonstrates either profound audacity or a supreme level of ignorance that should disqualify oneself from leadership in education. But why is LSA trying so hard to erase this history? We have some ideas:
When students don’t know how vibrant A/PIA Studies used to be, it is easier for LSA to pretend as if its new diversity plan is breaking new ground rather than peddling old rhetoric.
Setting low expectations makes it easier for LSA to defend its poor decision-making regarding leadership choices for the A/PIA Studies Program and Department of American Culture, which lost 20 faculty of color from 1997 to 2016.
Dean Martin and LSA are covering up their own roles in undermining faculty of color and ethnic studies. The university is currently the defendant in a landmark suit by two highly successful, award-winning faculty, who cite U-M’s own documents to reveal how prior LSA deans and senior faculty opposed ethnic studies and favored white professors with thin resumes to lead American Culture.
If he wants to believe he is so committed to diversity and the A/PIA community, Dean Martin should retract this alternative facts and implement the five demands we presented in November 2016, and reinstate Professors Kurashige and Lawsin immediately, giving them the resources needed to restore A/PIA Studies at U-M. If he will not do this, we challenge Martin—a quantitative researcher—to show us the data that on A/PIA Studies activity (e.g. student enrollment and involvement, fundraising, public events, local/national awards, media coverage) before and after Professor Kurashige’s termination and explain the discrepancy.
(A version of this statement is also featured in the Michigan in Color section of the Michigan Daily)
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.
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.
