A women’s soccer player at Syracuse University in New York was suspended from the team after a video surfaced showing her using racial slurs. The university is investigating the incident.
The video which did not have a date stamp shows the women yelling at the person taking the video. The woman says, “If you touch me, it will be over. Are you recording this? You faggot-assed nigger.”
The director of athletics at Syracuse University issued a statement which read in part: “This type of intolerance and hurtful language, focused on both race and sexual orientation, is not part of the culture we seek to foster among our student athletes and its has no place at Syracuse University.”
When I worked at a majority institution racially offensive actions and language were not dealt with. A White departmental chair told a Black professor who wore an MLK t-shirt during Black History Month to “go cover that up with a jacket”…and nothing was done. A White professor told a Black professor to “assimilate” into the nearly all White community…and nothing was done. The Executive Vice President told a student that “some people are raised to be racist and Black people should try and understand that”…and nothing was done. I am glad that Syracuse is doing something about their racially offensive issues.
Re: Dr. Minor,
I appreciate your pointing out the racial micro-aggression as experienced by Black faculty at various HWCUs(Historically White Colleges and Universities). More important, I am more interested in what course of action did you personally or professionally take after becoming aware of such disparate treatment towards Black faculty? In other words, did you simply acquiesce to these racist White faculty members or did you immediately corrected their behavior? Also, did you make others aware within that respective department of the university aware of this institutional racism? Finally, I am asking you these fundamental questions because entirely too many Black faculty situated at these HWCUs personally or know of other Black faculty who experience various forms of racism and merely suffer in silence. In my humble opinion, this type of subservient mindset needs to cease in the 21st century. What’s more important being treated as a third class citizen or securing tenure?
I worked at a University for 12.5 years and I was sexually assaulted by my boss and then fired after I reported it. I was never told about Title IX and I was called liar by management and HR. Before I was fired, a wealthy dark skinned student came to me for help because he was falsely being accused of theft because of the color of his skin. I tried to help this student and was written up and it was used against me. There was a racial slur written on one of the Residential Hall mirrors and this University investigated and wrote that even though the majority of the community believes this was a hate crime the investigator finds it is not.
We got a new Chancellor so I wrote her about racism I had witnessed at the University and shortly after I signed up for the Diversity Summit and they accepted my money for registration. This new Chancellor sent campus safety to meet me and give me a no trespass letter and they refuse to refund my money to me. Racism thrives at Universities because very few care, and it is only dealt with when it becomes public. This University has been on the DOE OCR list for over a year and nothing has changed.