Ethos: The Practical Ethics Blog

Sometimes a national news story hits home in a particularly powerful way and demands a response. If you are like many people who listen to the news, you have already heard about the October 9th incident where an unidentified person left a four-foot “hanging noose” on the office door of Dr. Madonna Constantine, an African-American professor of counseling and clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

This sinister act of racist intimidation, which painfully evokes the over 5,000 victims of racist lynching in our nation’s history, has also rightly struck a nerve in professional groups like the American Psychological Association and at many of America’s colleges and universities, including Antioch University New England.

I first heard about this painful incident from Gargi Roysircar, a colleague of mine who works in the Clinical Psychology Department at Antioch New England. For Dr. Roysircar, this premeditated act of racism was personal in two key ways. First, like Dr. Constantine, Dr. Roysircar is a scholar of color doing research on racism and the multicultural counseling competencies needed by psychology practitioners in the 21st century. She is thus a potential target for similar threats. Second, as she wrote to the Antioch community, “My students in the Human Diversity course read her articles. Madonna and I have grown up together in our respective careers. Just this year I co-authored an article with her.” This situation is very personal for Dr. Roysircar and the other psychology faculty members at Antioch who have worked with Dr. Constantine.

Is it also personal for a white environmental studies professor whose office is on the other side of the building from Dr. Roysircar and who never heard of Dr. Constantine before a few weeks ago? I think so. I am a firm believer that an injury to one is an injury to all. I was thus moved by Dr. Roysircar’s passionate call for all Antioch New England students, faculty, and staff to find ways to address the issue of both overt and subtle racism at Columbia University–and at our own institution.

This process has begun. A support group on campus called Students for Ethnic and Racial Diversity worked with Dr. Roysircar and crafted a heartfelt and poetic petition in solidarity with Dr. Constantine. They gathered more than 150 signatures on Antioch New England’s campus in less than a week and sent their petition on to Dr. Constantine. As the petition said, “We want scholars to continue doing valuable research in safety and freedom and not to have to pay the price of their well-being and human dignity for their academic pursuits and/or their ethnic, racial, and cultural affiliation or identity.”

David Caruso, the President of Antioch New England, also issued a public statement saying, “This abhorrent incident is a harsh reminder of the persistence of prejudice and racism in our culture, and of the effort we must make together to confront such hate-based behavior and develop and implement strategies to promote positive change.” More personally, Dr. Caruso sent a letter of support directly to Dr. Constantine on behalf of the entire faculty, staff, and student body of Antioch New England.

On October 17, Antioch New England’s Faculty Senate unanimously passed a support resolution for Dr. Constantine stating, “We believe that the core values of freedom, justice, mutual respect, and universal human rights–which should be at the heart of every academic institution—need to be defended. The struggle against white supremacy is not over.”

Yet, making statements in support of Dr. Constantine is not enough. As the Senate resolution went on to say: “We believe that this is a teachable moment at academic institutions across the country, one that could allow for deepened discussion and insight into the dynamics of racism and other forms of oppression–as well as an opportunity for all of us to learn how to support each other, be better allies, and stand up for justice and decent treatment for all. We urge all our students and faculty to find ways–in our respective spheres of influence–to reach out and support Dr. Constantine and the understandably upset faculty and students at Teachers College, while also building an ever stronger community of racial solidarity and trust right here at Antioch University New England.”

The trick, of course, is how to spark deep conversations at our campus and in the wider community about the nature and persistence of racism and how we can act together to bring us all closer to Martin Luther King’s vision of America as a Beloved Community.

At Antioch, more of us are now reading articles, discussing diversity issues together, and organizing workshops that do more than help us make statements against overt racist acts like the one directed against Dr. Constantine. As Dr. Roysircar says, “Let us not overlook subtle racism and unconscious racial microaggressions that racial and ethnic minorities, women, and those less privileged experience daily.” Now is the time, she says, “to build cross-cultural bridges of respect to reach one another and all people.”

This is true at Columbia, at Antioch, at other universities–and it is also true in our city governments, our nonprofit organizations, our religious congregations, and our businesses. Now the hard work begins.

Best,
Steve

P.S. To read the full text of David Caruso’s letter, or the ANE Faculty Senate Resolution, go to http://eaop-blog.blogspot.com and scroll down one post.

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Steve Chase, Ph.D.
Director, Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program
Department of Environmental Studies @ Antioch University New England
40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431
Steven_Chase@antiochne.edu; 603-283-2336 (office); 603-357-0718 (fax)

* EAOP’s Main Website: http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/
* EAOP’s “Well-Trained Activist” Blog: http://eaop-blog.blogspot.com
* EAOP Radio Interview: http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/radio.cfm
* EAOP’s Online Activist Bookstore: http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/bookstore.cfm
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Steve Chase :: Oct.28.2007 :: Ethics :: No Comments »

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