A university in Massachusetts is being sued after asking an applicant for a one-year assistant professorship to “defend her whiteness” in the interview.
The applicant, Donna Johnston, apparently didn’t give a good enough answer and therefore didn’t get the job.
Via Jonathan Turley:
Bridgewater State University is the subject of a novel lawsuit after it asked Donna Johnston, a white applicant for one of three open positions in the School of Social Work, to “defend her whiteness” in a job interview. The university said that she “missed the target” in answering how she could overcome her “white privilege.”
According to The Boston Globe, Johnston was one of ten applicants and felt that she was highly qualified for the one-year assistant professorship after teaching at Southern New Hampshire University and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a licensed social worker from Plainfield, Connecticut with extensive clinical experience.
She said that she was shocked in the interview when a professor asked her to defend “your white privilege.” Johnston says that she was told that “Black students may not be able to relate to you because of your white privilege.” Johnston reportedly acknowledged her white privilege but failed to adequately answer how she would address it.
The university is quoted as acknowledging the question but insisting that it was meant to give Johnston an “opportunity to show … how she would use her experience and teaching skills to overcome a common obstacle as a social worker and teacher.” It added that her answer “missed the target.”
It is not clear what that target is. Johnson’s lawyer is quoted as saying “If somebody had said to a Black applicant, let’s talk about your blackness, or how does your blackness affect something, there’d be outrage.”
It’s really unbelievable that this would happen to someone in a job application process, especially in light of the racism this country overcame 6 or 7 decades ago. America is headed in reverse into another era of racism and our liberal universities are taking us there.
Turley says, however, that the case will be difficult because the university went on to hire two white applicants and they will argue their line of questioning wasn’t racist at all:
Yet, there are challenges in the lawsuit. First, two white applicants were hired. Second, the university is citing the lack of classroom experience as one of the non-racial factors leading to Johnson’s rejection.
It is clear, however, that Johnson’s race was interjected into the interview process. The school is likely to argue that such questions arise with social workers and that they wanted to see how Johnston would respond.
Boston-based lawyer Rebecca Pontikes told the paper that the remarks did not sound “profoundly racist” since they could be interpreted “two ways.” However, the test is likely not to be whether something is profoundly or simply racist. The question is whether an applicant can be subject to added scrutiny because of her race.
I certainly agree that this will be a tough case in light of the fact that two of the three successful applicants were white. There is also a credible claim that the interview process was meant to test an applicant in her response to expected questions in the classroom.
However, it could raise equally tough countervailing questions for a court on whether minority applicants could be asked to defend or respond to their race in such interviews. The court could conclude that a black applicant could legitimately be challenged on how she would respond to race-based comments or criticisms. Yet, that would run counter to prior cases where the interjection of race in interviews was viewed as creating a hostile or discriminatory environment for applicants.
No one should be asked to ‘defend’ their white race because of racial guilt or because of the racist perceptions that students may have. This would never happen to black applicants and that’s the true test of this.
This racial garbage has no place in the interview process and I hope the courts make this abundantly clear.