To: Alexandra Murphy, Acting Dean, College of Communication
Carolyn Bronstein, Associate Dean, College of Communication
Michaela Winschatz, Associate Dean, College of Communication
Shena Ramsay, Assistant Dean, College of Communication
A. Gabriel Esteban, President
Salma Ghanem, Interim Provost
Cynthia Pickett, Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Sherri Sidler, Interim Executive Vice President
Kathryn Stieber, Vice President, General Counsel and University Secretary
Elizabeth Ortiz, Vice President, Institutional Diversity and Equity
Stephanie Smith, Vice President, Human Resources
CC: Gerald Beeson, Chair, DePaul University Board of Trustees
Valerie Johnson, Faculty Council Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Committee Chair
Tim P. Vos, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
David McMahan, President, National Communication Association
Trevor Parry-Giles, Executive Director, National Communication Association
Mary Beth Oliver, President, International Communication Association
Laura Sawyer, Executive Director, International Communication Association
Date: April 9, 2021
Subject: Systemic Racism in DePaul’s College of Communication
It is clear that DePaul’s College of Communication deploys practices and procedures that are aggressively hostile towards BIPOC faculty offering a clear example of how white supremacist and racist structures operate in higher education with impunity. We see these practices as strategies of Whiteness that have historically been deployed to attack, marginalize, and silence US-born BIPOC (Black, Indigeneous, and People of Color) faculty and students. The ongoing experiences of discrimination and racial harassment faced by communication scholars Dr. Lisa Calvente and Dr. Sydney Dillard point to the urgent need for change. The toxic environment at DePaul threatens the health, wellbeing, livelihoods and lives of scholars of color. We call upon you to act with urgency to a) acknowledge that there is a systemic problem of racial harassment of BIPOC faculty at DePaul; b) demonstrate commitment to redressing racist structures that prevent BIPOC faculty from advancing in their careers, and c) act immediately to support the health and well-being of BIPOC faculty in the face of these racial attacks.
Rev. Sharpton in delivering his eulogy for George Floyd noted: “What happened to Floyd happens every day in this country, in education, in health services, and in every area of American life, it’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say get your knee off our necks.” We hoped that the brutal murder of George Floyd would result in transformational changes across universities, but this has not been the case. We demand that you “get your knee off our necks.”
In December 2020, Dr. Dillard, a tenured Associate Professor in the College of Communication at DePaul, filed a race and disability discrimination case against DePaul in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Case: 1:20-cv-07760 Document #: 1 Filed: 12/28/20). The complaint highlights in extensive detail the pervasive culture of racialized harassment and discrimination through Dr. Dillard’s pre-tenure appointment period and the processes employed in her evaluation post-tenure. This is a scholar who has shined in her scholarship, teaching, and service commitments, in ways that specifically speak to the excellence of BIPOC scholars in spite of the systemic attempts to undermine and sabotage their careers.
It is clear from the evidence that the standards, processes, and procedures in DePaul’s College of Communication are shifted and manipulated to work to the advantage of white faculty. Organizational procedures, codes of conduct, and even federal laws are broken to allow white faculty to advance, while preventing Black and Brown faculty from advancing. BIPOC faculty face age-old tactics of suspicion and surveillance that serve to gaslight them and stand in the way of their careers. In the case of Dr. Dillard, these tactics included: random invasive office searches, excessive and strenuous tenure reviews compared to other non-Black faculty, not being voted to serve as Program Chair despite being the only qualified candidate for the job, and sharing of private medical information with colleagues and then using that information to deny Dr. Dillard leadership positions. Through all of this, performances of civility and democratic process were used to isolate, intimidate, exclude, and target Dr. Dillard. In light of these racist actions, we petition DePaul’s College of Communication to:
A) Acknowledge that there is a systemic problem of racial harassment of BIPOC faculty at DePaul through:
- The resignation of Provost Salma Ghanem and Acting Dean Alexandra Murphy.
- The hiring of DEI competent leadership with the authority to implement transformative initiatives.
- Instituting an independent external equity audit of the College of Communication at DePaul University.
B) Demonstrate its commitment to addressing racist structures that prevent BIPOC faculty from advancing in their careers by:
- Specifying strategies that can lead to measurable outcomes in terms of bias-free pathways for BIPOC faculty success.
- Specifying a five-year timeline for retention, hiring and promotion of US-born BIPOC faculty into leadership positions.
C) Act immediately to support the health and well-being of BIPOC faculty in the face of these racial attacks by:
- Establishing support infrastructure for BIPOC faculty that is accountable to BIPOC faculty.
- Ensuring that the structures of institutional support and care given to white faculty are also made available to BIPOC faculty.
- Changing the culture of toxicity that distributes care differentially between white and BIPOC faculty.
As institutional leaders, we hope you will take responsibility for the structures of racism that violate the rights, dignity, life, and livelihood of Black and Brown faculty. Being subject to disproportionate levels of review, scrutiny and unwarranted surveillance reproduces the marginalizing effects of Whiteness experienced by BIPOC faculty across the academy.
Racism is a description of the failure of individuals and institutions to dismantle ideologies, systems, and structures- and by that definition DePaul’s College of Communication is racist. In taking these anti-racist actions, DePaul will not only improve the institutional
environment for Black and Brown faculty, but also for white faculty who will benefit from the increased transparency and equity.
We look forward to hearing the steps DePaul’s College of Communication will take with respect to the three above-mentioned petitions on or before April 26, 2021. Please send your written response to mohanjdutt@gmail.com.
Thank you
Sincerely:
- Mohan Dutta, Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication, Director, Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), Massey University
- Shaunak Sastry, Associate Professor, Director of The Cincinnati Project, University of Cincinnati
- Zhuo Ban, Associate Professor, University of Cincinnati
- Iccha Basnyat, Assistant Professor, James Madison University
- Rebecca de Souza, Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth
- Uttaran Dutta, Associate Professor, Arizona State University
- Tina Harris, Endowed Chair of Race, Media, & Cultural Literacy, Louisiana State University
- Devika Chawla, Professor, Ohio University
- Bryan J. McCann, Associate Professor, Louisiana State University
- Bernadette Calafell, Professor, Gonzaga University
- Karma Chavez, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin
- Ronald Jackson II, Professor, University of Cincinnati
- Mark P. Orbe, Professor, Western Michigan University
- Ersula Ore, Associate Professor, Arizona State University
- Srividya Ramasubramanian, Professor, Texas A&M University
- Andrew Carter, Assistant Professor, San Jose State University
- Theon Hill, Associate Professor, Wheaton College
- Shavonne Shorter, Associate Professor, Bloomsburg University
- Chenjerai Kumanyika, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University
- Sarah Dempsey, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Raihan Jamil, Associate Professor, University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh
- Rati Kumar, Associate Professor, Central Connecticut State University
- Anna Ortiz, Associate Professor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
- Jagadish Thaker, Senior Lecturer, Massey University, New Zealand
- Rahul Rastogi, Assistant Professor, SUNY at Oneonta
- Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, Associate Professor, Texas A&M University
- Ikram Toumi, Assistant professor, Kent State University
- Sarah de la Garza, Associate Professor & Southwest Borderlands Scholar, Arizona State University
- Raymie McKerrow, Professor Emeritus, Ohio University
- Heather Zoller, Professor, University of Cincinnati
- Matthew Houdek, Lecturer, Rochester Institute of Technology
- John Lynch, Professor, University of Cincinnati
- Robert E Gutsche Jr., Associate Professor, Lancaster University
- Kristina Drumheller, Professor, West Texas A&M University
- Bobbi Van Gilder, Assistant Professor, Suffolk University
- Sarah Gonzalez Noveiri, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Denver
- Hailey Nicole Otis, Doctoral Candidate, Colorado State University
- Nancy Jennings, Professor, University of Cincinnati
- Steve Depoe, Professor and Head, University of Cincinnati
- Maggie Franz, Assistant Professor, University of Tampa
- Wai Hsien Cheah, Professor, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE)
- Anne Mattina, Professor & Chair, Stonehill College
- Godfried Asante, Assistant Professor, San Diego State University
- Tiwaladeoluwa Adekunle, Doctoral student, Purdue University
- Shinsuke Eguchi, Associate Professor, University of New Mexico
- Patricia Parker, Professor and Chair, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Travis Dixon, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
- Elizabeth Williams, Associate Professor, Colorado State University
- Zack Stiegler, Associate Professor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
- Brittany Fleming, Assistant Professor, Slippery Rock University
- Anjali Vats, Associate Professor of Communication and African and African Diaspora Studies, Boston College
- Amber Johnson, Associate Professor, Saint Louis University.
- Leandra Hernandez, Assistant Professor, Utah Valley University
- Steven Kleinman, Associate Professor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
- Falynn Thompson, PhD Candidate, University of Kentucky
- Tiffany J Bell, Assistant Professor, Valparaiso University
- Rosalyn Davis, Clinical Associate Professor, Indiana University Kokomo
- Kari Wilson Suttman, Associate Professor, Indiana University South Bend
- Toni C King, Associate Professor,, Denison University
- Rhunette C. Diggs, Adjunct Instructor, Johnson C. Smith University
- Nickesia Gordon, Associate Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology
- Dorothy Campbell, Professor of Communication Emeritus, Indiana University Northwest
- Kumi Silva, Associate Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill
- Maija Jenson, Instructor, University of Minnesota Duluth
- Richard T. Craig, Associate Professor, George Mason University
- Courtney Wright, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee
- Darrian Carroll, PhD candidate, University of Maryland.
- Curtis Chamblee, PhD student, University of Memphis.
- Lionnell Smith, PhD student, University of Memphis
- Creshema Murray, Associate Professor, University of Houston, Downtown
- Marie Odile Hobeika, Assistant Professor and Visiting Lecturer, Northeastern University
- Jennifer Moore, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth
- Melody Fisher, Associate Professor, Mississippi State University
- Angie Chuang, Associate Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
- Jill Doerfler, Professor and Head, University of Minnesota Duluth
- Lorrell D. Kilpatrick, Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Northwest
- Jeanine Weekes Schroer, Associate Professor and Head, University of Minnesota Duluth
- Apurva Apurva, Visiting Assistant Professor, State University of New York, Oneonta
- Shahin Kachwala, Assistant Professor, State University of New York, Oneonta
- Uchita Vaid, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Mary Moriarty, Adjunct Professor, Connecticut State University
- Keith Hughes, Adjunct Professor, Connecticut State University
- Eileen Doherty, Associate Professor, Marymount Manhattan College
- Karen Ritzenhoff, Professor, Connecticut State University
- Gregory Hummel, Assistant Professor, State University of New York, Oneonta