RUTHFULLY YOURS

City College was among the finest in the nation. It was called the “Harvard” of Convent Avenue and listed as one of the regional leaders in quality education. The list of alums includes seven Nobel laureates, prominent jurors, scientists, artists and intellectuals….tuition was free and admission based on meritocracy.In 1970, response to the spring 1969 building takeovers and riot threats by Puerto-Rican and black City College students, they instituted a policy of open admissions, guaranteeing every New York City high-school graduate acceptance to a CUNY campus and remedial courses anyone requiring them. …..the rest is history….rsk

When the president of the City College of New York resigned unexpectedly in October during a financial scandal, the school quickly named an interim leader and said it planned to pick a replacement by the end of the academic year.

But with the new school year less than a month away, no candidate has been chosen to replace Lisa S. Coico, who remains under federal investigation for using money from a college foundation to pay personal expenses.

Last month, in an unusual letter to the City College community, James B. Milliken, chancellor of the City University of New York, the college’s parent entity, cautioned that the search could take longer than anticipated.

“The search committee and our consultant continue their good work on this critically important responsibility, and I have assured them they should take the time required to see this process to a successful conclusion,” Mr. Milliken wrote.

Whether a successor is named in weeks — or months, as some officials are now speculating — the continued vacancy in the president’s office comes at a pivotal moment for City College, the flagship of CUNY, the country’s largest public urban university.

The CUNY system is playing a central role in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s newplan to help make public colleges in New York tuition-free for middle-class students, and has been attracting more national attention as an affordableengine of upward mobility. With 16,000 students, most of whom are undergraduates, City College has been called “the poor man’s Harvard” for educating thousands of poor, minority and immigrant students.

But its more recent history has been troubled. In May 2016, The New York Times reported that the 21st Century Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with the college, had paid for some of Ms. Coico’s personal expenses when she took office in 2010. The foundation was then reimbursed for more than $150,000 by the Research Foundation of CUNY, which manages research funds for the entire system. As questions swirled over the handling of Ms. Coico’s expenses, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York began issuing subpoenas seeking records.

Ms. Coico resigned one day after The Times informed the college that a memo from 2011 concerning her reimbursements appeared to be fabricated, possibly to mislead prosecutors.

Surprisingly, their survey of psychology students revealed that white students at “predominantly white institutions” had “greater awareness of racial oppression” than those who attended “racially balanced” schools.

Mary Ann Priester and Ronald Pitner, both of whom teach in the College of Social Work at USC, advanced that claim in a July 19 research article examining the prevalence of color-blind attitudes among psychology students.

“Deficits in awareness are not only unethical, but can also perpetuate White norms within the professions.” Tweet This

Defining color-blindness as “denial or lack of awareness of race-based privilege, institutional racism, and/or racial discrimination,” they argue that “this lack of awareness has been identified as a barrier to developing therapeutic rapport with racially diverse populations.”

“Color-blind racial attitudes may prevent White individuals from developing a deeper level of awareness of racial oppression,” the professors assert, later adding that “deficits in awareness are not only unethical, but can also perpetuate White norms within the professions.”

Because of the harm allegedly caused when white people subscribe to color-blind racial attitudes, the professors surveyed 409 college students to determine the prevalence of “color-blind racial attitudes” among students with varying levels of “diversity exposure.”

Students were considered to be color-blind if they agreed with meritocratic statements such as “Everyone who works hard, no matter what race they are, has an equal chance to become rich” and “Race plays a major role in the type of social services that people receive in the United States.”

The professors determined that “being White was associated with higher scores on the color-blindness measure, indicating a greater lack of awareness of White privilege and racial discrimination among White students,” and speculate that this might be due to the fact that “race is often not as central” to the identity of white individuals.

Curiously, they also found that “students who attended predominantly White undergraduate institutions had greater awareness of racial oppression than students who attended institutions that were racially balanced,” a result that runs contrary to conventional wisdom.

Citing “greater levels of exclusion and racial microaggressions at predominantly White institutions,” they suggest that “White students may become more sensitized to racism when they witness differential treatment of racial/ethnic minority students on campus.”

Reiterating their assertion that color-blindness presents a barrier to establishing “therapeutic rapport with clients,” the professors conclude that “understanding how diversity exposure influences color-blind racial attitudes…can better inform multicultural training curriculum and strategies.”

Neither Priester nor Pitner responded to requests for comment from Campus Reform.https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9502

The University of Michigan is looking to hire a new “Bias Incident Prevention and Response Coordinator” to clamp down on “students of concern” and “enact cultural appropriation prevention initiatives.”
The full-time job, which pays between $46,000 and $57,000, oversees handling of “bias incidents” reported on campus, as well as various “social justice initiatives.”
The role also has crisis-management components, such as providing “a safe listening space in which to offer compassion, support, and guidance to students” after especially severe “bias incidents.”

The University of Michigan is looking for someone to clamp down on “students of concern” and “enact cultural appropriation prevention initiatives.”

A job posting on the school’s website seeks candidates to fill the role of “Bias Incident Prevention and Response Coordinator,” a full-time position within the Dean of Students Office that comes with a starting salary range of $46,000 – $57,000.

“Provides a safe listening space in which to offer compassion, support, and guidance to students.” Tweet This

UMich estimates that about 40 percent of the job will involve coordinating “bias incident response efforts,” which entails coordinating “appropriate and effective intervention and communication between multiple campus offices…and the provision of support to individuals and groups targeted by bias behaviors.”