A staff member at Smith College in Massachusetts resigned from her position as a student support coordinator due to an alleged “hostile atmosphere” regarding race theory at the college.
Jodi Shaw, a white and now-former employee at Smith College, described herself as a “life-long liberal” who was forced to “participate in racially prejudicial behavior as a condition” of her employment, according to a video she posted online in October.
“I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself,” Shaw said. “Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color.”
Shaw described the method of conflict resolution at the school as watching “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.”
LONGTIME BRONX TEACHER FIRED FOR REFUSING TO MAKE BLACK PANTHER SALUTE: COURT FILING
The former staffer said she was asked to support “a curriculum for students that teaches them to project those same stereotypes and assumptions onto themselves and others,” calling the curriculum “dehumanizing” and preventing “authentic connection.”
Shaw said the final straw came in January 2020, when she was asked questions about her racial identity, to which she said she was uncomfortable answering. She alleged a staff member framed her silence on the matter as an act of aggression.
She resigned from the college last week. Journalist Bari Weiss was given the letter by Shaw and uploaded it to her webpage on Friday.
In the letter, Shaw recounted what she claims was the moment the “culture war” came to her campus, or what she describes as an atmosphere of racial discrimination at the school.
“In July 2018, the culture war arrived at our campus when a student accused a white staff member of calling campus security on her because of racial bias. The student, who is black, shared her account of this incident widely on social media, drawing a lot of attention to the college,” she wrote.
“In spite of an independent investigation into the incident that found no evidence of racial bias, the college ramped up its initiatives aimed at dismantling the supposed racism that pervades the campus,” the letter added. “This only served to support the now prevailing narrative that the incident had been racially motivated and that Smith staff are racist.”
Shaw contends the curriculum at Smith College is encouraging racial bias through the lens of anti-racist rhetoric. At one point in her resignation letter, Shaw recounts being denied the opportunity to perform an educational rap in 2018 after a colleague said it could be viewed as “cultural appropriation.”
“My supervisor made clear he did not object to a rap in general, nor to the idea of using music to convey orientation information to students. The problem was my skin color,” she said.
The president of the school, Kathleen McCartney, released a letter Tuesday addressing Shaw’s allegations against the school’s curriculum in her resignation letter.
“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,” McCartney said. “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.”
The president of Smith said Shaw suggested the school attempted 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 added.
The president’s letter said Shaw’s grievances with Smith suggested the former staffer’s disagreement with the school’s “equity and inclusion training” were based on broader institutional changes outside of Smith College.
“While the employee aims her complaint at Smith,” McCartney said, “her public communications make clear that her grievances about equity and inclusion training run more broadly — as she puts it ‘to the medical field … the publishing field, the tech field, it’s in the schools, the legal field, public schools, private schools, colleges of course, government. It’s everywhere.'”
McCartney said the college’s commitment to advancing equity and inclusion are “grounded in evidence.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Washington Examiner contacted Shaw but did not immediately receive a comment.
