Racist Thorns in the Ivy Tower : An insider’s experiences at Claremont mirror the debasement of people of color in less ‘enlightened’ parts of America.

Seven years after Reginald Clark was denied tenure on the faculty of education at the Claremont University Center and Graduate School, and two years after a jury awarded Clark$1 million in compensatory damages plus $16,327 in punitive damages and $419,633 in attorney’s fees, the California Court of Appeal affirmed the earlier decision. The affirmation was timely, coming just two weeks after the Los Angeles riots, for Clark’s case serves as a window on the frustration of black Americans. It is a window through which white Americans might see the effects of mass denial--denial of the truth to themselves and of a stake in the system to minorities.

There was testimony during the trial on Clark’s race-discrimination suit that, at a faculty dinner, a professorial colleague referred to him as “Calhoun” (after the stereotypical black character on the old Amos and Andy show), and his department chairman told him to pass the dinner rolls, “boy.” Clark was blamed when his office was vandalized and “Nigar” (sic) painted on the wall. As part of Clark’s tenure consideration, learned faculty members made derogatory statements, such as, “Us (sic) white people have rights too,” and “I don’t know how I would feel working on a permanent base (sic) with a black man.” In addition, there was testimony that relevant material had been left out of Clark’s dossier by his department chairman; that non-minority professors with less substantial publishing records than Clark’s had been granted tenure, and that changing and unwritten publication standards had been used in denying Clark tenure. The appellate court wrote that there was “enough impeachment evidence to cast doubt on (President John D.) Maguire’s credibility and the honesty of his (internal) investigation.”

How relevant has this case been, how corrective its effect at the Claremont Graduate School or the five affiliated Claremont Colleges? I can confidently assert that nothing has changed. Few faculty members know Clark or the details of the case. Many who know of it in a general way say, in keeping with the prevailing stereotypical views held by white people in this country (and contrary to facts presented in court) that Clark was a weak candidate who did not deserve tenure, but won his case because some of his colleagues made “stupid” remarks. Once, in a situation similar to the insults faced by Clark, a college higher-up said in my presence at a party, with no discomfort, that Asians were poor instructors; a colleague told me later that the remark was directed at Chinese, not South Asians, as if to console me.

Instead of the Clark case being an instrument of self-appraisal and understanding at Claremont, life goes on at the colleges as if nothing happened, waiting for another Clark to come along.

Claremont maintains its ivory-tower attitude of superiority in idyllic isolation from communities where people of color are not an uncommon sight. When I arrived in Claremont in 1987, the police shadowed me for a good 20 minutes, even though I was with my wife and two infants, which prompted me at the time to take up residence in Pasadena.

The prejudice is pervasive: It is routinely assumed that minorities cannot possibly be on the faculty. Although hitting middle age, I am commonly asked what I am studying. I know a minority professor who was asked by a college official to get off the stage reserved for the faculty at a convocation. Foreign-born persons applying for secretarial positions have had their applications stopped at the personnel department because they had an accent. Merit pay raises are awarded without formal evaluation.

Despite the Clark case, some of the colleges refuse to put into writing the standards for tenure and promotion. As a result, some people make it to full professorship with hardly a journal article to their credit, while others trying for a mere associate professorship have been faulted for not publishing in “good” journals, and, in one case, for publishing too much to make a reputation for himself!

Even as I write this, I can see many of my white friends and colleagues being hurt--some even angry--that I should pen this, and thereby sully the good reputation of the Claremont Colleges. To them, I say this: Think on the parallels between what the Los Angeles rioters did in violently shattering the myth of this as a land of harmony, opportunity and promise, and what I am doing with my pen. It is the same thing. Like Malcolm X’s prototypical field slave who cheers as his master’s house is burned, we have little stake in upholding a paradisiacal myth that serves us none.

If everyone can understand this, that would be the first step in providing minorities with a stake in the system, and thereby promoting reconciliation and, ultimately, a system that is fair for all and, yes, true brotherly love.