[Whether in college or in K-12, the purging of Black educators,
administrators and Black studies will have a devastating impact on
American society. ]
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THE WAR ON BLACK EDUCATORS AND WOKEISM  
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David A. Love
October 1, 2023
LA Progressive
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_ Whether in college or in K-12, the purging of Black educators,
administrators and Black studies will have a devastating impact on
American society. _

, Cagle Cartoons

 

Kathleen McElroy, a Black woman, a preeminent professor and journalist
- was hired to revive the journalism program at Texas A&M University.
Then came the backlash from white conservatives within the system
[[link removed]] who
took issue with her work at the New York Times and her focus on
diversity and inclusion in newsrooms. Texas A&M then backtracked and
watered down its offer, which McElroy rejected. This is but the latest
example of Black educators
[[link removed]] under
attack — scrutinized, marginalized and scapegoated by white
supremacists who would remove Black people from education.

On Thursday, Texas A&M reached a $1 million settlement
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McElroy. This, after an internal investigation found that
conservative university officials sabotaged her hiring — part of an
effort to promote “conservative values” in the A&M journalism
program and elsewhere in the university, and “control the liberal
nature that those professors brought to campus.”

What happened to McElroy is nothing new and reflects a widespread
pattern of attacks on Black educators. As Michael Harriot
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chronicled in his four-part series in the Grio, South Carolina —
once a Black-controlled state during Reconstruction — is ground zero
in the attack against Black educators and culturally responsive
education. In the Palmetto State, Moms for Liberty is taking out Black
superintendents in majority Black school districts in the name of
preserving whiteness.

Whether in college or on the K-12 level, the ongoing purge of Black
teachers, professors, educators, administrators and Black studies will
have a devastating impact not just on Black students but on all
students, society in general and the educational system as a whole.
When we hide the crimes of history and silence the truth-tellers, we
empower and embolden repeat offenders.

A tenured professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a former
director of its journalism school, McElroy was recruited to lead
the journalism program
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her alma mater, which had been dissolved in 2004.

What began as an offer for tenure and a five-year contract to lead the
program — which she signed, pending approval from the Texas A&M
Board of Regents — was whittled down to a five-year contract with no
tenure and finally a one-year contract as a professor with no tenure
and three years as director, with Texas A&M being able to fire her at
will. Amid a “DEI hysteria

Texas A&M President Kathy Banks
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who announced her immediate retirement in light of the matter, said
she was unaware of the contract changes leading to the hiring mishap.
However, Banks reportedly interfered with McElroy’s hiring
process, and race played a role in the watering down of the
professor’s contract, according to Hart Blanton, head of Texas
A&M’s department of communications and journalism, who was involved
in recruiting McElroy.

Texas A&M is going to remain a second-rate institution and we will
never be a top-tier institution if we allow individuals to accept the
reality that we cannot recruit diverse people,” said veteran
journalist Roland Martin
[[link removed]], a Texas A&M alum at
the Texas A&M Black Former Student Network Virtual Town Hall
Meeting.

Meanwhile, the Texas A&M Faculty Senate
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the school administration for its role in the botched hiring process.
The faculty group said in a letter that it “decries the appearance
of outside influence in the hiring and promotion of faculty,” which
is detrimental to “the common goal of preserving Texas A&M
University as a premier institution with an outstanding reputation,”
as the Texas Tribune reported.

Professors and advocates of free speech alike noted that vocal
right-wing pressure groups
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speaking out against the hiring of McElroy.

A conservative lobbying group of Texas A&M alums also opposed the
hiring of McElroy and said and reportedly had access and complained
to university officials
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This group, the Rudder Association, was formed during the George
Floyd Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 to protect the campus statue
of Lawrence Sullivan “Sully” Ross, former Texas A&M president and
Texas governor, and confederate general who was praised as Ross was
responsible for ordering the mass murder of Black Union soldiers who
had surrendered outside Yazoo City, Mississippi on March 5, 1864.

THE WAR ON BLACK SCHOLARS

What happened to McElroy in Texas is but the latest example of a
full-scale war on Black educators and Black education across the
country.

Ta-Nehisi Coates recently crashed a South Carolina school board
meeting on the banning of his 2015 autobiography “Between the World
and Me,” which deals with racism and being Black in America. Coates
lent support to a teacher who came under fire for teaching his book.

Texas and other jurisdictions have banned the teaching of Nikole
Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project. Hannah-Jones was denied tenure at
the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
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unlike her white predecessors in that position — because of white
backlash over the 1619 Project. She then rejected their subsequent
tenure offer and headed to Howard University
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Walter Hussman, a UNC graduate who donated $25 million to the
journalism school that now bears his name, told university officials
he opposed Hannah-Jones.

And Black scholars face punishment from universities for speaking out
on the racial issues of the day. For example, when Queen Elizabeth
died — and Black, Indigenous and Irish Twitter took the opportunity
to reflect on the genocidal legacy of British colonialism and
imperialism — Carnegie Mellon linguistics researcher Uju Anya
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no mercy for the queen on social media and wished her an excruciating
death. After billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos complained about
the tweet
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Carnegie Mellon responded
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tweeting “We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages
posted by Uju Anya…Free expression is core to the mission of higher
education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent
the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek
to foster.”

WHEN SLAVERY BENEFITED THE ENSLAVED

Like Texas, Florida is waging an assault on Blackness, history and
academic freedom. The Florida Board of Education has approved new
whitewashed standards to teach middle school students how enslaved
Black people
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skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal
benefit.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis managed to both distance himself
from the new curriculum standards and support them
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claiming “I wasn’t involved,” but adding, “They’re probably
going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you
know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life. But the
reality is, all of that is rooted in whatever is factual.”

Further, Gov. DeSantis is dismantling New College — a small public
liberal arts college and a self-described 
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a substantial LGBTQ population — and transforming it into a
dystopian white nationalist hellscape. Claiming that New College
indoctrinates its students with leftist ideology, DeSantis has purged
administrators and faculty and installed anti-critical race theory
henchman and water carrier for white supremacy Christopher Rufo
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a board member. Florida has become toxic ground
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Black professors, and other faculty who are either fleeing the state
or refusing to come to a place where Blackness and diversity, equity
and inclusion (DEI) are under siege.

A NATIONAL CRISIS OF BLACK PROFESSORS

This purging of Black professors and Black studies is doing real
damage. Along with these concerted efforts to wipe Blackness out of
education, there are examples of — where racism most certainly
shapes the structures of these predominantly white and male
educational institutions even as individuals in these institutions may
not consider themselves racist.

A mere 6% of college faculty in the U.S. are Black professors
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The low numbers of Black faculty amount to a 
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higher education, reflecting a widespread belief among white academia
that Black profs are too risky and not a “good fit.” It gives the
impression that some colleges and universities are more reluctant to
hire Black faculty
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admit Black students.

Similarly, Black teachers and administrators
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the K-12 level are leaving the profession due to burnout and heavy
workloads, lack of support, COVID and angry parents and politicians.

U.S. public school teachers are far less diverse
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their students. In recent years, nearly 80% of teachers were white,
even as white children were a minority of students. Teachers of color
are 20% of public school teachers
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teachers. In the 2020-2021 school year, fewer than 2% of teachers
were 
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men
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while white women accounted for 61%.

Yet, the benefits of having Black educators are clear. Black
professors and other faculty of color are crucial in providing
students with intercultural competence
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person’s ability to function and communicate well across different
cultures, and is critical to the development of college students in
navigating a multiracial and multicultural world.

Hiring more Black teachers improves educational outcomes
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Black students. Young children develop better problem-solving and
learning skills
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taught by teachers of the same ethnicity, with the most dramatic
effects for Black and Latinx children. More Black male teachers
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needed to serve as role models and mentors for Black young people. It
is important for Black children and young people to see their future
selves reflected at the front of the classroom — Black teachers as
living examples of their future potential.

Black teachers go about the world with their own swagger and energy,
their own perspective and worldview that society will not find
elsewhere. How dare we deny young minds and future leaders of this
energy, other than to disempower them and rob them of the tools for
their success? White supremacy would say that’s the whole point,
which also explains the war on Black studies.

What we are witnessing with the DEI hysteria in Florida, in Texas and
elsewhere is fascism with American Jim Crow sensibilities, or
what Toni Morrison
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“the forces interested in fascist solutions to national problems.”
In 1995 at Howard University, Morrison said “Racism may wear a new
dress, buy a new pair of boots, but neither it nor its succubus twin
fascism is new or can make anything new. It can only reproduce the
environment that supports its own health: fear, denial and an
atmosphere in which its victims have lost the will to fight.”

Erase the memory of our past and those who teach it, and you deprive
us of our power and a better future. And without the knowledge of past
injustices, we allow these injustices to return, as in right now. This
is why the battle for Black educators and Black education is so
important.

_DAVID A. LOVE, JD, is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator
[[link removed]]. He is a lawyer and
journalist based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive
Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, In These Times and
Philadelphia Independent Media Center. He contributed to the book,
States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (St. Martin's
Press, 2000). His blog is davidalove.com._

* Black teachers
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* racial discrimination
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* war on woke
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