During the first Emory University Senate meeting of the academic year on Sept. 24, Emory School of Medicine Professor of Pediatrics Nitika Gupta resigned from her role as Senate past president. Gupta said she found her goals to be “misaligned” with Senate President George Shepherd and President-elect Noëlle McAfee’s goals due to disagreement surrounding Gupta’s process of creating an open expression subcommittee.
“I have encountered disrespect as a faculty colleague and a lack of professionalism from George Shepherd and Noëlle McAfee,” Gupta wrote in her resignation letter.
In her resignation letter, which she read at the meeting, Gupta wrote that Shepherd and McAfee gave her a memorandum compelling her to dissolve the ad hoc subcommittee that she established during her presidency to revise the Respect for Open Expression Policy.
Shepherd sent the memorandum to Gupta and former Staff Council Past President Dawn Francis-Chewning, who served with Gupta as co-chair of the ad hoc subcommittee, on July 3. In the memorandum, which Shepherd sent on behalf of McAfee and Committee for Open Expression Chair Ilya Nemenman, he explained that they believe Gupta did not follow Senate rules when forming the ad hoc subcommittee because the executive committee allegedly did not vote on the establishment.
A report from Francis-Chewning and Gupta states that the Senate approved the ad hoc subcommittee during an executive committee meeting on March 24.
McAfee disputed this claim, stating that the executive committee did not keep any minutes. She added that Shepherd, who was on the executive committee at the time, does not remember the ad hoc subcommittee’s formation. However, the March 24 Senate meeting minutes state that the ad hoc subcommittee “will be formed along with a panel of advisors who will provide subject matter expertise” and that “all changes will be brought to the senate for approval.”
The minutes do not say if the Senate’s executive committee voted on the subcommittee. Since the ad hoc subcommittee was under the executive committee, McAfee said only the executive committee needed to vote on its formation, not the entire Senate.
Shepherd did not respond to The Emory Wheel’s request for comment by press time.
In addition to disputes over the legitimacy of the subcommittee, Shepherd criticized Gupta and Francis-Chewning for not revealing who was on the ad hoc subcommittee and for failing to include proponents of open expression on the subcommittee.
Gupta and Francis-Chewning wrote that they did not want to share the identities of people on the subcommittee with the Senate to “prevent distractions and maintain privacy.”
McAfee condemned the alleged “secretive” nature of the subcommittee.
“I’m sure [Gupta] felt like she was doing the right thing, and that the outcome would have been perhaps better than what ended up with [University President Gregory] Fenves unilaterally creating these rules,” McAfee said. “But I don’t think that’s worth the price of having a secret committee.”
Additionally, Shepherd suggested Gupta and Francis-Chewning would be potentially misrepresenting community views on open expression by not disclosing the membership of the ad hoc subcommittee. Shepherd wrote that Emory College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate President-Elect Clifton Crais would be in strong support of open expression and should be added to the subcommittee. Gupta and Francis-Chewning responded that they offered Crais a position as an advisor to the ad hoc subcommittee.
Gupta and Francis-Chewning claimed the decision to not include certain Emory staff, students and faculty who are associated with free expression was to “avoid conflict of interest.”
Shepherd and McAfee also expressed concern that administration members were on the subcommittee, as Francis believed they would attempt to “constrain” the group’s focus. Gupta and Francis-Chewning instead advocated for a “360 view” within the subcommittee to promote “honest conversations and optimal results.”
Gupta and Francis-Chewning asked Guyberson Pierre (25C) to join the ad hoc subcommittee, emailing him that he was chosen on April 19. However, Pierre said he had “no idea” how he was selected for the subcommittee. In the email asking Pierre to join the subcommittee, Gupta and Francis-Chewing wrote that they wanted to present an updated policy to the Senate in September or October of this year, noting that this timeline was “ambitious.”
To keep information private, Pierre said he was advised to keep his work confidential.
“We were sort of encouraged to not overly share details, or share much detail about the nature of our work,” Pierre said.
Pierre said the subcommittee met multiple times over the summer and that at the time the subcommittee was dissolved, it was only a month or two away from completing its work and delivering recommendations on the open expression policy to the Senate.
Pierre said it was a “surprise” and “disheartening” to the subcommittee for McAfee and Shepherd to stop its work.
