The New York Times recently wrote that last Friday’s reception to celebrate the Woodruff Library’s exhibition on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) “could have been more poorly timed, but not by much.”
I could not disagree more. The reception provided a vital context for assessing President Wagner’s statements and moving forward as a community.
The Civil Rights leaders who addressed the audience spoke warmly of President Wagner, but their remarks provided an ethical vision that is diametrically opposed to that which he has exhibited in his column and administrative decisions.
In his column, President Wagner praised the virtue of “compromise.” His example was a “compromise” that condemned millions of African Americans to enslavement in the service of the “higher aspiration” of preserving national unity.
The civil rights leaders who spoke Friday – Representative John Lewis, Charles Steele, Jr., Dorothy Cotton and Dr. Bernard Lafayette Jr. – spoke of the virtue of being uncompromising. Faced with a task that was in many ways much more difficult and daunting than that of the Constitution’s framers, they refused to compromise by leaving the most vulnerable behind or adopting methods that would harm others.
These Civil Rights leaders provide a critical rubric for assessing the compromises that we have made as a community.
In these pages, Black Student Association President Jovanna Jones has explained why she was “not surprised” by President Wagner’s statement. For Jones, Wagner’s statement was a reflection of an Emory community that “refuses to embrace the actual practice of understanding and appreciating diverse populations.”
It is indicative of what Kayla Hearst, leader of the Emory chapter of the NAACP, has described in the Wheel as a “culture of apathy and ignorance.”
These assessments contrast with the reactions of those of us who considered President Wagner’s statement an aberration. This contrast illustrates our own unwillingness to understand. We must examine the “compromises” that we have made with the culture illustrated by President Wagner’s analogy and make a sincere and systematic assessment of how our actions replicate harmful institutional dynamics.
As Emory’s leader for 10 years, President Wagner has played a crucial role in this culture. His essay must be assessed in the context of his policies. While the Wagner administration has made strides to foster diversity at Emory, we must examine the deleterious impact of the administration’s departmental cuts, labor policies and subversions of institutional transparency and democratic process.
We must also examine how the administration’s policies have contributed to an environment in which professional success, college rankings and academic fashion seem, at times, more valued than substantive intellectual and ethical engagement.
We must hold President Wagner accountable for both his statements and for his fostering of an institutional environment in which they have been thinkable, sayable and, sadly, defendable by people who should know better. Without such accountability, there can be no moving forward.
We will just wait until the media storm “dies down” before returning to our old ways.
We as a community cannot “compromise” on our president. President Wagner has failed significant segments of our population and greatly damaged our institutional norms. We must force him to drastically change his approach to his management, or – if we doubt his ability to do so – to resign.
Whatever our conclusion, the outcome cannot end the discussion.
It must be a starting point for a broader shift in Emory’s culture. One thing we can all do is to attend the “Rally Against Racism” this Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 6 p.m. Another should be to visit the SCLC exhibit and archives at the Woodruff Library.
There one can find a model for leadership that is truly ethically engaged.
Harold Braswell is a 6th year PhD candidate in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts.
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Don’t forget about the racially motivated firing of Dr. Erik Butler. This needs to be protested as well. Ron Sauder claims that there was no discrimination, but he also didn’t see anything wrong with Wagner’s piece. The head of the German department got the administration to fire Erik Butler for focusing his research on Germany’s past crimes against the Jewish people. It is ridiculous how the University finds that to be OK. Students of all races and religions should unite. Down with the racialist administration!
“Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.”
-Nelson Mandela, Feb 25, 1985
Erik Butler’s translation of the Gumbrecht, “Atmosphere, Mood, Stimmung…” came across my desk at Woodruff last week, reminded me of what a great (and senseless) loss that was…
Glad to read such clear statements of the problem, calls for action. Thanks, Harold.
We support democracy,
not the bureaucracy,
the bureaucracy of hypocrisy
We fight for truth,
you’re spouting lies
that is why we can not compromise
The cuts are abominated,
’cause they weren’t negotiated
We’re willing to negotiate,
so the situation doesn’t detiorate,
but we can’t negotiate,
if you don’t act appropriate
You wanted to downsize,
but instead you got an uprise
from the faculty you got chastised
and Jovanna wasn’t surprised
The cuts could not be justified,
so your office was occupied
We’ll continue to agitate,
until you abdicate;
We’ll continue to demonstrate,
’cause this ain’t no police state
What you see as compromise,
we see as genocide
Hear my call to action,
I am not a fraction!
“We must also examine how the administration’s policies have contributed to an environment in which professional success, college rankings and academic fashion seem, at times, more valued than substantive intellectual and ethical engagement.” Perfect framing!
I should read:
“The New York Times recently wrote that last Friday’s reception to celebrate the Woodruff Library’s exhibition on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) ‘could have been more poorly timed, but not by much.'”
“In his column, President Wagner praised the virtue of “compromise.” His example was a “compromise” that condemned millions of African Americans to enslavement in the service of the “higher aspiration” of preserving national unity”
The Three-Fifths Compromise had *nothing* directly to do with allowing or disallowing slavery. It was purely a compromise of accounting, each state’s power in Congress, and taxation. That’s it. Would it have been better if slaves were counted as “full people” despite being slaves? Or not counted at all? Indirectly, given that those states leaning against slavery were more populous, this compromise was aimed at keeping the Southern states in enough power to counter those supporting abolition.
Not to mention that without an agreement on slavery, there wouldn’t be a United States at all. Unless you think that the U.S. wasn’t a good thing to do and should never have been founded–well, that’s your call. But unless you can pinpoint a way that the U.S. could have been founded without allowing slavery, you can’t have both.
Nicolas,
Any nation that refuses to own up to its foundational lies has no claim to rightful existence. Even more so in any nation inclined to delude itself with notions of Manifest Destiny, Imperial Exceptionalism and related ideological incantations. Any University that turns a blind eye to Slavery, its Romancers and others who try to hide their double standards behind the flag of a two-tiered country, cannot claim to be a house of learning, anymore than a slave masters’ quarters cannot be confused with those of the enslaved. By your standards, the Japanese-Americans were better off being placed in concentration camps for four years because at least they weren’t slaughtered outright. Neither African-Americans nor Japanese-Americans wanted to be part of a compromise that deprived them of their very humanity. Next time you feel like bartering away the lives of innocents, maybe you should volunteer one of your kin first. Then come back and let me know how this so-called compromise of yours is working out.
In what way has a “blind eye” been turned to anything? We can and should be able to consider historical events in both current context and in their contemporary context. If you can only do the former, you aren’t as intelligent as you think you are.
You’re wasting your time by trying to reason with unreasonable people. How many people do you think actually read the article in the Emory magazine before hearing about the controversy in some other manner? Some people are just malcontents and will go looking for a reason to get angry. This is “proof” that they are victims.
Wagner must go. And compromise is always dictated by the terms of the powerful. Hence people like Wagner praising it.