USC report issues 12 recommendations to fix SWC’s racial problems

Southwestern College has “one of the two to three most toxic” racial climates of 50 colleges studied by USC’s Race and Equity Center. President Kindred Murillo requested the assessment in July 2017.

Dr. Shaun Harper, founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, was taken aback by SWC’s anti-blackness problem.

“The stories we heard from classified employees at Southwestern were the worst of any place we have been,” Harper wrote.

Researchers were told by multiple classified employees that Caucasian and Latinx employees have called them the “n-word”. Other testimonies alleged physical assault. A full-time faculty member, who is black, said they were mistaken for a trespasser and beat by a campus police officer in the parking lot.

Murillo replaced previous SWC President Melinda Nish, who was dismissed for mishandling the racial climate on campus.

“We felt like we needed to do something,” Murillo said. “Dr. Harper became very highly recommended because he is considered a national racial climate expert.”

Employees referred to Kindred as a “clean up president” according to the USC report.

“They understood her to be the person whom the Board hired to fix many of the climate, cultural, and operation problems that led to the dismissal of the previous president,” Harper wrote.

The Study

Murillo delivered the report to staff and faculty via email with a preface stating the report was “not a fact-finding investigation, i.e., not intended to determine whether someone was right or wrong.”

Harper is a leading scholar on campus racial climates. USC launched and administered the annual National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates. The research is collected as quantitative survey.

“We do rigorous, evidence-based work that educates our nation, transforms institutions and organizations, boldly confronts racism, and strategically achieves equity,” wrote Harper.

USC’s study is typically conducted across three to four days. Due to proximity, however, five researchers were sent over a period of two days instead.

One-hundred-nineteen participants volunteered to be interviewed and were then separated by race and employment status to keep focus groups homogenous.

Participants said they appreciated Murillo’s commitment to equity overall. A notable number of participants were critical of her position as a white president during a racial crisis. Participants also felt Murillo missed opportunities to appoint qualified people of color to leadership positions.

Racial Tensions

Allegations of discrimination against black employees included: unsafe work environments with toxic chemicals; threatening letters; a vandalized locker; unequal reparations of employees by administration; and unfair assignment of campus resources or removal of resources from black instructors to white instructors.

“It is important to note,” Harper wrote. “That anti-black views are not only held by white people, but also their Latinx co-workers, many participants felt.”

Overrepresentation of white people in positions of power were said to cause a feeling of powerlessness for Latinx employees. Latinx employees said they felt an overall sense of community at SWC, which is a “Hispanic serving institution.” Though many still felt they had unequal access to resources and power compared to white employees. SWC’s Academic Senate and employee union leaders are both predominately white.

White employees are aware of the racial conflict between African-American and Latinx groups on campus but abstain from the conversation, according to the report. Some white participants stated they did not feel it was their place to intervene while others feared the consequences of intervening. White participants did not mention overrepresentation of whites in positions of leadership and power within SWC.

Harper’s report also found that white employees re-direct conversations away from race more frequently than any other group. Interviewers did attempt to guide the discussions back, but white participants continually redirected to “raceless topics.”

Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander and multi-racial employees felt “severely underrepresented.” USC’s report said the college failed to diversify beyond Black and Latinx employees and hoped SWC would hire more racial groups. While the participants of these groups said they did not experience overt racism, they felt removed from conversations about people of color on campus. They also said they experienced a lack of community.

Human Resources

All groups said they felt hiring processes are dysfunctional and mishandled. Participants had major concerns about being overlooked for job opportunities by less-qualified employees based on race. All groups agreed that SWC’s human resources department has little oversight or accountability, but the black employees felt most affected by it. Participants were concerned about loopholes in the hiring process like interim positions and strategic committee stacking of Latinx employees.
The report concluded with recommendations aimed at improving the school’s racial climate.
Murillo said she was “keeping a promise to the college community” when she released the report via mass-email to the college’s employees the Saturday before classes began.
Since the report’s release employee seminars have been held to discuss the findings and the campus racial climate amongst homogenous racial groups.

Recommendations

Here are Harper’s 12 recommendations for SWC:

  • Issue a Formal Apology to African American Staff
  • Host a Quarterly Employee Forum on Race
  • Facilitate Listening Sessions with Classified Staff
  • Establish a Presidential Commission on Race
  • Create conversation Guides on Race
  • Strategize Ways to Increase Faculty Diversity
  • Creating Leadership Pipelines
  • Make Employment Date Transparent
  • Hire a Consulting Firm to Fix HR
  • Do Not Aim for Quotas in Hiring
  • Appoint a Vice President for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
  • Encourage the Launch of Employee Affinity Groups

Harper was scheduled to facilitate a “special Governing Board meeting” but canceled. He has not responded to multiple requests of contact from The Sun or Murillo.