Does Smith College have a toxic atmosphere towards staff employees?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Smith College
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There was a recent Youtube video posted by a Smith College alum Jodie Shaw who now works for Smith College as a staff member. This video has been taken off of youtube but is now available on the Jerry Coyne blog (CC rules prevent linking to such blogs).

In this video, Jodie, who is white, presents a heartfelt message about what she feels is extreme intimidation with regards to race. She asks that Smith College:

  1. Stop reducing her personhood to a racial category.
  2. Stop telling her what she must think and feel about herself. In her words, Smith College does that a lot.
  3. Stop presuming to know she is and what her culture is based upon her skin color.
  4. Stop asking her to project stereotypes and assumptions based upon their skin color, which is something they ask her to do incessantly.
  5. Stop telling her that young women of color have no power or agency in this world.
  6. Stop telling young white women that they have power and privilege over everyone else. Both this narrative and the one above as very disempowering.
  7. Stop demanding that she admits to "white privilege" and her "implicit bias" as a condition of her continued employment.
  8. Stop telling her that as a white person, she is "especially responsible" for the work of dismantling racism.
  9. Stop emboldening students to act abusively towards staff by refusing to hold them accountable for their own egregious behavior.
  10. She asks for the right to work in an environment free from the ever-present terror that any unverified student allegation of racism has the power to crush her reputation, ruin her livelihood, and endanger her physical safety.

She also made another important point in this video, which is that staff are mostly white, which is to expected given it is the dominant racial composition of Western Massachusetts. This is unlike that of faculty and students, which can come from all over the USA or World. In addition, she mentions that staff are typically low paid, making a salary of what it costs to attend Smith for a single semester. In other words, almost all of the faculty and most of the students families are much more privileged than most of the staff.

Finally, she mentions that Smith might be in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on many criteria, including race.

I encourage everyone to seek out the video.

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I don’t think that is surprising or unusual if you average all the staff, from the cleaning and grounds keepers to those working in finance and admissions.

This woman went to Smith. She should have gotten a feel for it in the 4 years she was a student. I picked up on the tour that it is a school of SJW who want change everywhere except at Smith. They will tell you how to think and as long as you think like they want you to, you’ll fit right in.

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I was completely prepared to be sympathetic to the cafeteria worker, “Jodie” or, “Jackie” as she seems to be identified in the New York Times, because I was always taught to treat workers with respect, even when I thought they were in the wrong. And, there clearly seems to have been some kind of mistaken identity going on with the young woman accuser. But, what was Jackie actually asked to do other than sit down and talk with the young woman? The video reveals her as an extremely sensitive and intelligent person with a long association with Smith. I’m sorry she feels her alma mater is hostile to white people.

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Jodi Shaw was not a cafeteria worker.
Please read the article, “Whistleblower at Smith College Resigns Over Racism” by Bari Weiss.

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I see. The NYTimes article mentions Ms. Shaw in the opening paragraph and then spends the next three quarters of the piece following the case of a Jackie Blair who was a cafeteria worker.

Well, that little bit of explanation just made Ms. Shaw a lot less sympathetic. She’s steeped in the ways of academia; she’s lawyered up. She’ll be fine.

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Wow she lost me at ‘stop telling me young women of color have no power or agency in this world’ and ‘stop telling me that young white women have power and privilege over everyone else’. This woman needs to read White Fragility.

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Deleted.

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I am a non-white person who grew up in a conservative state, in a relatively poor town that was predominantly white, and where only a small fraction went to college. This socioeconomic class makes up most of the staff at colleges throughout the country (Jodi’s background as a Smith alum for her job is likely an exception).

To say that these people benefit from any significant privilege because they are white is wrong. They are relatively powerless in society, and certainly as staff members within a college. Both students and college leadership have much more power over them.

As outside observers we do not know if Jodi’s portrayal is accurate or not. We do know that she is a Smith alum who liked the college enough to work for it afterwards. And she’s smart enough to know that doing this would come at a huge personal cost for her. Does this mean that’s she’s right? No. But I don’t see her incentive for trashing the college she went to and works for unless she absolutely felt she needed to.

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Two different things. Socioeconomic privilege versus race. Poor white people are still white and would be given the benefit of the doubt in various situations that people of color would not.

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And PS this lady is a Smith alum, hardly a poor, uneducated, non privileged white person. With a four year college degree from Smith she already has access to more than the people from the town you mention in your example.

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To provide context on the Jodi Shaw incident and the Smith College culture regarding its staff, I recommend everyone read the NY Times article that circuitrider mentioned above (those who aren’t subscribers can read a few articles for free each month):

For those who are unable to read it, here is a summary:

  1. In summer 2018, a black student named Oumou Kanoute posted on Facebook that she was eating in a dorm lounge when a janitor and campus police officer asked what she was doing there. She commented that the officer could have been carrying a lethal weapon. “All I did was be Black. It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color.”
  2. The college immediately defended her. Smith’s president, Kathleen McCartney, apologized profusely. The President further said that “this painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias…”
  3. The policy that the janitor was taught was that security should be called rather than he approach the student directly. The campus police officer was unarmed.
  4. Ms. Kanoute was first eating in a dorm that that was being used for high school summer programs. For the protection of the students, no unauthorized person was allowed there. She was approached by a Smith cafeteria worker named Jackie Blair, who told her this, but then decided not to press it, for fear that students will lodge a complaint (more on this below).
  5. Ms. Kanoute then went to a dorm that was closed for the summer, where she was seen by an older janitor with poor eyesight. Again, to protect the high school students, the staff were told that security should be called for anyone who was unrecognized. The janitor called security thinking that a unauthorized male was in the building. She later accused the janitor of “misgendering” her.
  6. A security guard came, recognized her, and had a brief and polite conversation where he apologized for bothering her (we know this because she recorded it and the law firm reviewed it).
  7. Smith’s President apologized to Ms. Kanoute and wrote a public post defending her and put the janitor on paid leave. She did not speak to the accused employees. Even before the investigation was started she wrote “It was appropriate to apologize. She is living an context of ‘living while Black’.”
  8. Three weeks later, Ms. Kanoute wrote a Facebook post where she accused Jackie, the janitor, and a Mr. Patenaude of racism. Patenaude was actually not even there at the time. Ms. Blair makes $40k per year and has lupus, which is triggered by stress. She started getting threats and a call from a Boston Globe reporter.
  9. Smith College put out a short note only stating that Jackie did not call security, but did not otherwise defend her.
  10. Students rallied around Ms. Kanoute. Smith College pressured Jackie to go into mediation with her. She declined.
  11. The law firm released a 35-page report that said that completely cleared Ms. Blair and found no evidence of discrimination by anyone else. It did validate Ms. Kanoute’s lived experience that she was afraid of the police officer.
  12. Smith College never apologized to the staff. Ms. Blair was reassigned to a different dorm, where in her first week, she was accused of being a racist by students.
  13. Anti-bias training began that fall for staff, but notably, not for faculty.
  14. Ms. Kanoute posted Mr. Patenaude’s photo on her facebook account, accusing him of being a racist (remember, he wasn’t even there). He left his job at Smith due to that.
  15. Jackie was furloughed due to covid. During one job interview, the manager asked her “Aren’t you the one involved in this incident?”. She didn’t get the job.
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In summary, Smith College allowed one of its students to essentially ruin the careers of three people who did exactly what Smith College’s policy told them to do. And rather than expelling this student, it defends her and throws the staff under the bus. And furthermore, it requires staff, but not faculty to attend sensitivity training.

The person responsible for this disaster is Smith College’s president, Kathleen McCartney.

Why in the world would someone want to send their child to Smith College, when they too could be destroyed by an unfounded accusation, and know that Smith will not defend them at all.

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Why anyone would choose to attend such a toxic place is beyond me.

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I agree, @roycroftmom. I wish I could take credit for the following as it perfectly captures the situation:

The spectacle of excited youngsters pointing their fingers at and ruining the lives of poorer, older people around them, while those in power stand cowed and frozen with fear, is a New England tradition that goes back to at least the 1690s.

But I can’t. It was a comment from a second NY Times article describing what’s wrong at Smith College. Ms. Kanoute is a fine 21st century version of Elizabeth Hubbard, and Kathleen McCartney is unwittingly playing the role of the cowed Chief Magistrate, William Stoughton.

For those interested, here is the second NY Times article:

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In short, no. The NYT article and Jodi Shaw’s rants present a highly twisted version of the facts in this situation. If you are actually interested in this situation, you might want to start by reading the updated FAQ that Smith has made available to the public. You can also dig through the “Letters to the community” listed on President McCartney’s page for specific statements on this (and the covid management situation, if you’re interested).
I am the parent of a current Smith student. While students have varying opinions about the way that this was handled by the school – not all positive, not all negative – they are almost universally disgusted by way this has been handled in the press. The vast majority of students continue to be extremely enthusiastic about the school.

https://www.smith.edu/president-kathleen-mccartney/letters-community

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I am happy that a member of the Smith community has responded. I followed the link and saw the numerous Letters to the Community, and read some of them. But we should both recognize that we cannot assume what Kathleen McCartney writes is closer to the “truth” than what Jodi Shaw writes.

So instead, I actually read the 35-page report created by the law firm because they were specifically tasked with finding the truth.

Here is their conclusion (I replaced terms like Caller and Reported Party with names and descriptions, but it is otherwise unchanged, except for the bolding which I discuss below):

The investigation did not find that the evidence was sufficient to show that Ms. Kanoute was discriminated against with respect to the Incident. The investigation did not find that Jackie Blair engaged in the behaviors complained of by Ms. Kanoute. The investigation determined that the janitor had a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for contacting the Campus Police, and there was insufficient information to conclude that the Caller’s stated reason was a pretext for discrimination on the basis of the Ms. Kanoute’s race or color, in violation of the Policy. Nor did the investigation find evidence that Responding Officer or Dispatcher violated the Policy by discriminating against Ms. Kanoute on the basis of race or color. As indicated above, the Dispatcher was not aware of the race or color of Ms. Kanoute when he dispatched the Responding Officer, and the Responding Officer was unaware of Ms. Kanoute’s race or color until he entered the room, at which time he recognized her as a student. No information reflected that, when in the room, the Responding Officer responded to the Incident based on Ms. Kanoute’s race or color. Accordingly, this report did not determine that the Dining Employee, the janitor, the Dispatcher, or the Responding Officer, violated the Policy in connection with the Incident.

In summary, nobody was found to have done anything wrong. But by this time, Ms. Kanoute had already written a FaceBook post accusing the college of racism. In her post, she included the name, photo and email address of Jackie Blair (who she incorrectly believed made the call) and another janitor named Mr. Patenaude, who wasn’t even there at the time.

I bolded one section because the finding is different. Whereas for others it said “did not find the evidence was sufficient to show”, for her it said they did not find Jackie did what she was accused of. The difference is due to the fact that Ms. Kanoute changed her story over time about what she said that Jackie did.

Finally, let’s now compare President McCartney’s reaction to Ms. Kanoute’s initial accusation vs. her reaction to the release of the report, quoting directly from her letters to the community.

After Ms. Kanoute’s allegation:

I want to assure you that I have reached out to her, offered a meeting and apologized on behalf of the college. Dean of the College Susan Etheredge ’77 and her team have been in contact with the student as well, to offer their support.

After the report:

The report’s findings are important in two respects. First, they provide a foundation for potential reconciliation and healing for those involved. Second, they include recommendations about Smith’s future, a future in which we recommit to ensuring that every member of our community feels welcome and valued.

Did you notice that there was no public apology to the staff? If you find it elsewhere, please point me to it. If you can’t find it, how do you defend that difference in behavior?

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Seems like President McCartney read a different report than the one you linked to!

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The Smith student body ambivalence towards the factual report of an objective third party really does not reflect well upon the students.

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The publicly-available information shows numerous claims made by the NYT and Jodi Shaw to be obviously and demonstrably false. You can pick out the ones that bug you and repeat them as many times as you want, but it does not change the facts.

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I am certain both Shaw and the NYTimes have many falsities, but I do not think the law firm report does. Are you claiming that too is unreliable?

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