A female Smith College employee that resigned last week -- and who claims the college offered her money to not detail reasons for her departure -- alleges she left because the school essentially objectified her Caucasian appearance, and thus created a hostile work environment.
In response, the college said it was the employee that “demanded payment of an exceptionally large sum in exchange for dropping a threatened legal claim,” and that “our equity and inclusion training is never to shame or ostracize.”
“I was offered a settlement in exchange for my silence, but I turned it down. My need to tell the truth — and to be the kind of woman Smith taught me to be — makes it impossible for me to accept financial security at the expense of remaining silent about something I know is wrong,” the former employee said in a resignation letter.
The ex-employee, Jodi Shaw, who earned a degree at Smith in 1993, said over the weekend that she plans to file a civil rights lawsuit against Smith.
She was a Student Support Coordinator with a $45,000 annual salary at the school.
In her resignation letter to Smith College President Kathleen McCartney, Shaw stated: “As a divorced mother of two, the economic uncertainty brought about by this resignation will impact my children as well. But I have no choice. The racially hostile environment that the college has subjected me to for the past two and a half years has left me physically and mentally debilitated. I can no longer work in this environment, nor can I remain silent about a matter so central to basic human dignity and freedom.”
The Republican requested comment from Smith, including information about any settlement and/or money exchanging hands.
“The employee suggests that Smith tried to buy her silence. But it was the employee herself who demanded payment of an exceptionally large sum in exchange for dropping a threatened legal claim and agreeing to standard confidentiality provisions,” McCartney wrote in a Feb. 22 letter.
The college president’s response, posted online Monday, includes the following:
“Ordinarily, a personnel matter of this nature would not warrant a letter from the president to the college community; however, in this instance, the former employee, in her letter, accuses the college of creating a racially hostile environment for white people, a baseless claim that the college flatly denies. In addition, her letter contains a number of misstatements about the college’s equity and inclusion initiatives, misstatements that are offensive to the members of our community who are working every day to create a campus where everyone, regardless of racial identity, can learn, work and thrive,” McCartney wrote.
In her letter to McCartney, Shaw claims: “I was told on multiple occasions that discussing my personal thoughts and feelings about my skin color is a requirement of my job. I endured racially hostile comments, and was expected to participate in racially prejudicial behavior as a continued condition of my employment,”
“Every day, I watch my colleagues manage student conflict through the lens of race, projecting rigid assumptions and stereotypes on students, thereby reducing them to the color of their skin. I am asked to do the same, as well as to support a curriculum for students that teaches them to project those same stereotypes and assumptions onto themselves and others. I believe such a curriculum is dehumanizing, prevents authentic connection, and undermines the moral agency of young people who are just beginning to find their way in the world,” Shaw wrote.
She also alleged that: “In this environment, people’s worth as human beings, and the degree to which they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, is determined by the color of their skin. It is an environment in which dissenting from the new critical race orthodoxy — or even failing to swear fealty to it like some kind of McCarthy-era loyalty oath — is grounds for public humiliation and professional retaliation.”
"employee" - Google News
February 23, 2021 at 05:05AM
https://ift.tt/2ZFJCKj
Smith College employee resigns, accuses college of ‘racially hostile environment’ - MassLive.com
"employee" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3c4ygEc
https://ift.tt/2W5rCYQ
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Smith College employee resigns, accuses college of ‘racially hostile environment’ - MassLive.com"
Post a Comment