Academic Senate addresses Department of Education letter on race
Central Michigan University Provost Paula Lancaster addressed the “Dear Colleague” letter at the Academic Senate meeting on Feb. 18.
The letter came from the United States Department of Education, advising educational institutions to stop using race as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other institutional programming.
Lancaster said there are no clear directions, but CMU is working on understanding what legal actions the letter is asking for.
“The letter raises many questions ... that we don't have answers to at this point in time, and I fully acknowledge that that is frustrating,” Lancaster said. “I do know that we likely have colleagues who are concerned about whether their research, or even their jobs, will be allowed to exist. I can only imagine how frustrating and frightening that must be.”
In the letter, the Department of Education said that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs have been denying students the ability to fully participate in school life.
“DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not,” the letter read. “Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups, based on crude racial stereotypes.”
Thus, the Department said educational institutions have 14 days from Feb. 14 -- essentially until the end of the month -- to ensure all policies follow civil rights law.
“If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” the letter read. “Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.”
But Lancaster said it is not clear what exactly is required to be completed in these 14 days. She also said there is a question about whether this letter even serves as legal guidance.
“We continue to do exactly what we've been doing,” Lancaster said. “In fact ... do even better. And I just wanted to make sure that you all knew, we're very aware of this. We're working as well as we can to understand the possible implications, if there are such implications, and in the meantime, investing more energy to continuing the good work.”
CMU Health and MyMichigan partnership
Additionally at the Academic Senate meeting, Matt Johnson, a professor of higher education, raised concerns about how CMU Student Health Services employees were notified of the university’s possible partnership with MyMichigan.
Johnson said he was particularly troubled that employees were given a few hours' notice.
“I think that when people's livelihoods and jobs are at stake, they ought to be informed, even if it's bad news, and they should have a chance to make their case,” Johnson said. “They should be heard out, and their input should be meaningfully solicited.”
As Central Michigan Life previously reported, at a Feb. 12 Board of Trustees committee meeting, Vice President of Finance Mary Hill announced a proposal that could allow MyMichigan Health to acquire the clinic.
A family nurse practitioner, Anne-Marie Wiggins, told trustees during their Feb. 13 formal session that this merger would wipe out employees' benefits.
“Many of us have longevity with CMU,” Wiggins said. “We have employees who have been here for 22 years, 17 years. … If we are no longer employees of CMU, we would lose the seniority and benefits we worked so hard to get.”
Family Medicine Physician Dr. Cara Crawford-Bartle told CM Life that the employees were notified of that for the first time early morning of the Board’s committees meeting.
At Tuesday's Academic Senate meeting, Lancaster said Trustees decided to take a pause and review other partnerships after hearing the employees' concerns on Thursday.
“It certainly seemed as if the folks involved had a moment or two to reflect on the short notice and the manner in which it was handled, and made some changes as the time wore on,” Lancaster said. “Clearly, we can do better in terms of communication and respectfulness.”
In other events:
- Academic Senate made changes to several programs. Senators voted for a new program, Master of Public Health, Health Systems Administration Concentration, and voted for Health Administration M.H.A. to change from 51 to 39 credits.
- They also changed the Curriculum Authority Document (CAD) for Teaching English Learners minor, which certifies teachers to work with multilingual students, to go from 18 to 21 credits and make it available online, said April Burke, the director of teaching English learner endorsement.
“We are proposing a change to the CAD so that this program can become a certificate, so that we can receive support across the spectrum,” Burke said.
- Patricia Williamson, director of CMU Honors program, presented on the elimination of ENG201H as a protocol requirement for Honors program. The Senators voted to approve the change.
“Currently, our Honors protocol is 33 credits, which is an incredibly large protocol for students to complete,” Williamson said. “This is one of the ways that we can somewhat easily scale back to 30 required hours within the honors protocol (and) the same number of students will still be taking ENG201.”
