Students For Academic Freedom

Racist Professing? CCSU prof essor challenges the academic seriousness of Women's and African Studie · 14 June 2003

CCSU professor challenges the academic seriousness of Women's and African Studies programs? Is he right?

By Chris Harris - June 5, 2003

On the surface, Jay Bergman's letter doesn't come off as a glaring example of racist propagandizing, but you wouldn't know that from the sort of response that letter's been getting from some of the veteran professor's Central Connecticut State University colleagues. To them, Bergman's words smack of subtle racism, and beneath each sentence lies the author's true intent -- to paint two of the college's academic programs as vehicles that promote strong political agendas and are devoid of intellectualism.

In doing so, Bergman's critics claim he's attempting -- through his remarks -- to influence the school's top administrators during a most critical period.

Soon, fiscal issues will be weighed, and decisions will be made concerning program budgets for the impending academic term.

"When you send letters to people who can eliminate a program, objecting to a conference we'd had, that can set the ball in motion, and [Bergman] knows that," says Renee White, an associate professor of sociology at CCSU who also serves on the board of the school's African Studies program, one of the targets of Bergman's critique. "It's not coincidental that he's sending it off to people who can cut budgets."Bergman's May 6 letter, signed by more than 20 other colleagues, was addressed to Lawrence McHugh, the chairman of CCSU's board of trustees, but was delivered to several others on the board as well as Dr. William Cibes, the president of the Connecticut State University's Board of Governors for Higher Education, and Gov. John G. Rowland.In his letter, Bergman calls on the trustees to issue a "formal statement endorsing the principle of intellectual diversity," something he says is "essential to the educational mission" of CCSU. Intellectual diversity, Bergman writes, is "the presentation of as wide a variety of opinions as possible on any given topic."

Bergman's position is that this doesn't happen enough at CCSU. So the school's students are being sent off into the world unprepared "to make reasoned and informed judgements" about the issues they'll face after the pomp and circumstance procession.

"Unless students are exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints, they cannot exercise the freedom they need as students to evaluate critically what they are told by their instructors," Bergman continues in his memo.

Bergman cites the African Studies and Women's Studies programs as specific examples of how the school's students are being robbed of a balanced education.More specifically, Bergman chastises the African Studies program for organizing a conference in November on reparations for slavery. There is a move afoot in this country to argue that African-Americans have the right to financial recompense for centuries of slavery. Bergman says the conference only invited speakers who were in favor of the idea. In his letter, he compared the conference to a "revival meeting," claiming it "was nothing more than an exercise in propaganda: not one of the presenters expressed the reasonable opinion, which students attending the seminar were entitled to hear, that reparations are a bad idea."Turning his attention to the Women's Studies program, Bergman -- who teaches in the history department -- has been a vocal critic of the program since the late 1990s, and condemns it, writing that "only this month, after inviting over the years literally hundreds of speakers to campus who advocated the kind of feminism it favors, did the Women's Studies program finally include on a panel a speaker who opposed it."

Bergman was referring to Candice deRussy, a conservative feminist who doesn't oppose feminism as a concept, but does oppose liberal and radical forms of feminism.

Furthermore, Bergman draws attention to the program's assertion -- one that appears in its fact sheet -- that "Women's Studies began as an 'academic arm' of the feminist movement." So, he argues, the point of the department is primarily political, and only secondarily academic.

White, as well as C. Charles Mate-Kole, a CCSU psychology professor and the director of the school's Center for African Studies, responded to Bergman's assertions with a strong allegation -- Bergman's a racist. "I think people assume that in order to be a racist, you've got to proclaim your hatred of minorities, and there are much more subtle ways in which racial bias can manifest," explains White. "When you criticize a program, as not academic, and more political, that inherent assumption has racist overtones to it."

White says the purpose of the reparations conference was not to debate the issue as good or bad -- if it were, its organizers would have invited speakers to present the opposing side. Instead, she argues, it centered on the basic premise that reparations is a "pertinent question" in America.

"We could've had the opposing view, but we didn't," White says. "Does that mean the conference was inappropriate? [Bergman] can have his opinion, but to make the claim that this conference is evidence of a lack of intellectual diversity on campus is disingenuous."

Mate-Kole says he's curious to know who Bergman would have chosen to present the "reparations are bad" side -- "The Ku Klux Klan? David Duke? Him?"

White says Bergman's criticisms are suspect, given the fact that several special interest groups on campus host conferences and panels that are often one-sided. Take a recent conference on Hiroshima, sponsored by the East Asian Studies program -- no one during that conference, she says, spoke to the issue of whether or not that single act of war was a "good thing."

"So, why not these same objections?" White questions.

Melissa Mentzer, director of CCSU's Women's Studies program, tends to agree with Mate-Kole and White. "[Bergman] has targeted these two programs, and it's not because he wants to create a dialogue," she says. "He wants to get rid of us, or make us over in his own image somehow."

Bergman says he doesn't regret writing the letter, which featured more than 20 signatories. In addition, he resents the accusation that he's a racist."The point I wanted to make is that sometimes students do not have the knowledge or the life experience to make reasoned judgements on issues," he defends. "Therefore, it's all the more incumbent on professors to present both sides or all sides of an issue."

And yes, Bergman -- who admits he did not attend it -- maintains the reparations conference should have presented a differing opinion on the issue.

"If there's going to be a whole bunch of people who are going to state that reparations are good, [the organizers] might've seen fit to bring in someone who considers reparations a bad idea," he says. "Making a good-faith effort to present diverse viewpoints to me seems almost obvious, beyond debate.

"The charge that I am a racist, little different from a Nazi or a Klansman, for requesting that a conference on reparations include an opponent of it seems to confirm the argument I made in the original letter, on the importance of intellectual diversity, and the hostility to it among some professors at CCSU.

"My hope is not that African Studies or Women's Studies be abolished," he continues. "Far from it. Rather, it is that these organizations seek true diversity of opinion -- on reparations, in the case of the former; on, say, abortion and gender preferences in the case of the latter."

The introduction of a formal statement, supporting the ideal of intellectual diversity at CCSU, might, says Bergman, "cause some of my colleagues to rethink their views, and make an effort to ensure that programs, conferences, and seminars are diverse."

Bergman says he was looking forward to working with his colleagues this fall to create a diverse campus atmosphere. But, it doesn't look like that will happen now.

"It's going to be difficult, as they've called me a racist -- not for opposing reparations, but calling for a debate on the issue in which the opposing view was represented," he says. "That strikes me as being the height of intolerance."

Originally printed in The Hartford Advocate June 5, 2003

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