Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College (DL Catnip)

Also contains one of the best examples of Timesian double-speak ever:

[quote] The story highlights the tensions between a student’s deeply felt sense of personal truth and facts that are at odds with it.

Do you ever tire of posting race-baiting threads?! You need the catnip of a top notch therapist. There's help available out there - which you really need!!

We must shut down the government schools and the universities. This country cannot begin to heal until we do.

[Quote] Ms. Kanoute was determined to have eaten in a deserted dorm that had been closed for the summer; the janitor had been encouraged to notify security if he saw unauthorized people there. The officer, like all campus police, was unarmed.

If true, she was in a closed building where no one was allowed or supposed to be there. How did she get in?

The article explains it R4

The dorm cafeteria was being used for a children's summer camp that was held at the college and students were not supposed to go in there. She had taken her food from the cafeteria and was eating it in a part of the dorm that was empty for the summer.

For R4

[quote] Student workers were not supposed to use the Tyler cafeteria, which was reserved for a summer camp program for young children. Jackie Blair, a veteran cafeteria employee, mentioned that to Ms. Kanoute when she saw her getting lunch there and then decided to drop it. Staff members dance carefully around rule enforcement for fear students will lodge complaints.

[quote] “We used to joke, don’t let a rich student report you, because if you do, you’re gone,” said Mark Patenaude, a janitor.

[quote] Ms. Kanoute took her food and then walked through a set of French doors, crossed a foyer and reclined in the shadowed lounge of a dormitory closed for the summer, where she scrolled the web as she ate. A large stuffed bear obscured the view of her from the cafeteria.

[quote] A janitor, who was in his 60s and poor of sight, was emptying garbage cans when he noticed someone in that closed lounge. All involved with the summer camp were required to have state background checks and campus police had advised staff it was wisest to call security rather than confront strangers on their own.

So the common sense answer is, r5 and r6?

Was this young person reclining on the lounge with her feet up and dropping food into the upholstery and smearing greasy hands on the furniture?

That's has nothing to do with it r8 but you knew that.

Forget about all this crap - don't feed the Troll!!

[quote]The food services director called the next morning. “Jackie,” he said, “you’re on Facebook.” She found that Ms. Kanoute had posted her photograph, name and email, along with that of Mr. Patenaude, a 21-year Smith employee and janitor.

[quote]“This is the racist person,” Ms. Kanoute wrote of Ms. Blair, adding that Mr. Patenaude too was guilty. (He in fact worked an early shift that day and had already gone home at the time of the incident.) Ms. Kanoute also lashed the Smith administration. “They’re essentially enabling racist, cowardly acts.”

Wow, what a cunt.

R10 OP is not completely a troll. The story that first got told was from the perspective of the erring student as she told her personal truth. The other side is allowed to respond to clarify the situation. These days stories that don't fit the narrative are not told.

Oh and incidentally, Blair wasn't even the one who made the phone call to security. The cunt just assumed she was and doxxed her, and the other totally uninvolved guy.

[quote]Rahsaan Hall, racial justice director for the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts and Ms. Kanoute’s lawyer, cautioned against drawing too much from the investigative report, as subconscious bias is difficult to prove. Nor was he particularly sympathetic to the accused workers. “It’s troubling that people are more offended by being called racist than by the actual racism in our society,” he said. “Allegations of being racist, even getting direct mailers in their mailbox, is not on par with the consequences of actual racism.”

The school students are in charge of the school.

The workers should sue the college and also possibly the student. They were doing their jobs and got nothing but misery in return. The workers make 40k a year while tuition for one year is twice that at Smith.

The pain, the tears, the fluffy toy

I blame the media more for this stuff than the woke ideology that dominates so many elite liberal spaces like Smith because people will keep making up these fake incidents if the media keeps covering them. Why should the NYT or the Washington Post or CNN, which are national, even international publicans, run stories about some minor, non-verified cafeteria incident at a small liberal arts college? They shouldn't. But they know this kind of stuff drives clicks and outrage from both sides so they'll keep doing it and similar stories like this will keep happening.

R2 Posting this story is not race-baiting. It's a topic worth discussing or at least acknowledging. Excellent NYT article. I have nothing to add other than thanks for posting it, OP.

R2 is straight white cunt

Little Miss Victim also went to a very expensive private boarding school that tops out at tuition for $63k. The Westminster School in CT.

I think that black people in traditionally "white spaces" often feel insecure and are on high alert at all times for any type of slight, often when there is none. I wouldn't want to be at a school where I felt I was a minority and persecuted. Maybe Howard or a more diverse school would be a better fit. Smith is a white girl school.

The media over reacted but contacting security was just lame and insulting. Just tell her the place was closed. I did restaurant work for years and told no shortage of 19 year old college students to hoof it if a section was closed off to customers.

And if they didn't want students there they should have sealed the place off or done a better job making clear that the room was not for just anyone. The Daily Mail is going way over the top with this whole " mean minority women wants to destroy the lives of working class janitor" narrative.

Victimhood aristocracy.

Keep your head down when three children are near.

Don’t make eye contact, as it invites their taking offense.

Don’t interact with them if you can help it. Otherwise you’re asking for trouble.

*these children

[quote] erring student as she told her personal truth.

God damn but this progressive babble seems engineered to get on your very last nerve.

I’m an old school liberal and will be til the day that I die, but I can see that the escalating lunacy of the “new left” could easily push a slightly left-leaning centrist right into Trump’s arms.

R(27) , R(12) here. I should have put quotes on 'personal truth'. The term is complete BS and is no different from 'alternative facts'.

a Mary! for the ages. A janitor TALKED to me and asked what my stupid ass was doing in an abandoned building! Meltdown coming!

Entitled cunt ruins the lives of four workers, two of which weren’t even involved in the “incident.”

Do bias incidents happen? Yes. Is bias sometimes blamed when there is none? Yes.

Can anybody please post the full Article here? Thanks!

[quote] Rahsaan Hall, racial justice director for the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts

AKA "Another bullshit job designed to ride on the permanent victimhood gravy train."

The staff did not have to ask what are you doing here.

Just inform her, politely, the cafeteria is closed for the season and reserved for summer camp.

Each one of us has a responsibility to avoid unnecessary confrontations.

Full article Part 1

Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College

A student said she was racially profiled while eating in a college dorm. An investigation found no evidence of bias. But the incident will not fade away.

By Michael Powell Feb. 24, 2021

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — In midsummer of 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a Black student at Smith College, recounted a distressing American tale: She was eating lunch in a dorm lounge when a janitor and a campus police officer walked over and asked her what she was doing there.

The officer, who could have been carrying a "weapon," left her near "meltdown," Ms. Kanoute wrote on Facebook, saying that this encounter continued a yearlong pattern of harassment at Smith.

"All I did was be Black," Ms. Kanoute wrote. "It's outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color."

The college's president, Kathleen McCartney, offered profuse apologies and put the janitor on paid leave. "This painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias," the president wrote, "in which people of color are targeted while simply going about the business of their ordinary lives."

The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN picked up the story of a young female student harassed by white workers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which took the student's case, said she was profiled for "eating while Black."

Less attention was paid three months later when a law firm hired by Smith College to investigate the episode found no persuasive evidence of bias. Ms. Kanoute was determined to have eaten in a deserted dorm that had been closed for the summer; the janitor had been encouraged to notify security if he saw unauthorized people there. The officer, like all campus police, was unarmed.

Smith College officials emphasized "reconciliation and healing" after the incident. In the months to come they announced a raft of anti-bias training for all staff, a revamped and more sensitive campus police force and the creation of dormitories — as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.

But they did not offer any public apology or amends to the workers whose lives were gravely disrupted by the student's accusation.

This is a tale of how race, class and power collided at the elite 145-year-old liberal arts college, where tuition, room and board top $78,000 a year and where the employees who keep the school running often come from working-class enclaves beyond the school's elegant wrought iron gates. The story highlights the tensions between a student's deeply felt sense of personal truth and facts that are at odds with it.

Those tensions come at a time when few in the Smith community feel comfortable publicly questioning liberal orthodoxy on race and identity, and some professors worry the administration is too deferential to its increasingly emboldened students.

"My perception is that if you're on the wrong side of issues of identity politics, you're not just mistaken, you're evil," said James Miller, an economics professor at Smith College and a conservative.

In an interview, Ms. McCartney said that Ms. Kanoute's encounter with the campus staff was part of a spate of cases of "living while Black" harassment across the nation. There was, she noted, great pressure to act. "We always try to show compassion for everyone involved," she said.

I regret the day Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States. Having a half-African President has triggered so many so-called liberals/minorities to discount centuries of racism because a Black man had once been our President. I was mistakenly mislead into believing that racism in America was a thing of the past - gone, oblitarated - due to Amerca's embrace of multicultirism and progressive ideals. Now that we are so-called 'equals', the gloves have come off and the white person feels threatened once again. This only proves that we are not a meritocracy! This is the same argument used against Asians that are taking too many white people's designated positions and the proclamation of 'reverse racism'.

Please refrain from such Trump-inspired supremacy. Never forget that us fags are also a minority.

Part 2 President McCartney, like all the workers Ms. Kanoute interacted with on that day, is white.

Faculty members, however, pointed to a pattern that they say reflects the college's growing timidity in the face of allegations from students, especially around the issue of race and ethnicity. In 2016, students denounced faculty at Smith's social work program as racist after some professors questioned whether admissions standards for the program had been lowered and this was affecting the quality of the field work. Dennis Miehls, one of the professors they decried, left the school not long after.

Then in the autumn of 2019, the religious studies department proposed a class on Native American religion and spirituality. A full complement of students registered but well before classes began, a small contingent of Native American students and allies pasted bright red posters on buildings on campus reviling the course as harmful, intrusive and disrespectful and attacking the instructor, who was young, white and not on a tenure track. He had an academic background in this field and had modeled his course on that of his mentor, who was a well-known professor and a member of the Choctaw Nation.

The administration declined to challenge the student protesters and had the instructor submit to sessions of 'radical listening' with the protesters. In the end, the religious studies department dropped the class.

The atmosphere at Smith is gaining attention nationally, in part because a recently resigned employee of the school, Jodi Shaw, has attracted a fervent YouTube following by decrying what she sees as the college's insistence that its white employees, through anti-bias training, accept the theory of structural racism.

'Stop demanding that I admit to white privilege, and work on my so-called implicit bias as a condition of my continued employment,' Ms. Shaw, who is also a 1993 graduate of Smith and who worked in the residential life department, said in one of her videos. After months of clashing with the administration, Ms. Shaw resigned last week and appears likely to sue the school, calling it a 'racially hostile workplace.'

Her claims drew headlines from Fox News to Rolling Stone this week. Alumni, faculty and students continue to debate the issue. All of this arose from the events of July 31, 2018.

Obama sent them into a literal meltdown. They would rather see it all burn than another n word in the white's house.

A Summer Day

Ms. Kanoute, New York-raised, a 5-foot-2 runner and science student, was the first in her family, which had emigrated from Mali, to attend college. She worked that summer as a teaching assistant and on July 31 awoke late and stopped at the Tyler House dormitory cafeteria for lunch on her way to the gym. This account of what unfolded next is drawn from the investigative report and dozens of interviews, including with a lawyer for Ms. Kanoute, who declined several interview requests.

Student workers were not supposed to use the Tyler cafeteria, which was reserved for a summer camp program for young children. Jackie Blair, a veteran cafeteria employee, mentioned that to Ms. Kanoute when she saw her getting lunch there and then decided to drop it. Staff members dance carefully around rule enforcement for fear students will lodge complaints.

'We used to joke, don't let a rich student report you, because if you do, you're gone,' said Mark Patenaude, a janitor.

Ms. Kanoute took her food and then walked through a set of French doors, crossed a foyer and reclined in the shadowed lounge of a dormitory closed for the summer, where she scrolled the web as she ate. A large stuffed bear obscured the view of her from the cafeteria.

A janitor, who was in his 60s and poor of sight, was emptying garbage cans when he noticed someone in that closed lounge. All involved with the summer camp were required to have state background checks and campus police had advised staff it was wisest to call security rather than confront strangers on their own.

The janitor, who had worked at Smith for 35 years, dialed security.

'We have a person sitting there laying down in the living room,' the janitor told a dispatcher according to a transcript. 'I didn't approach her or anything but he seems out of place.'

The janitor had noticed Ms. Kanoute's Black skin but made no mention of that to the dispatcher. Ms. Kanoute was in the shadows; he was not sure if he was looking at a man or woman. She would later accuse the janitor of 'misgendering' her.

^ Part 3 above Part 4: A well-known older campus security officer drove over to the dorm. He recognized Ms. Kanoute as a student and they had a brief and polite conversation, which she recorded. He apologized for bothering her and she spoke to him of her discomfort: 'Stuff like this happens way too often, where people just feel, like, threatened.'

That night Ms. Kanoute wrote a Facebook post: 'It's outrageous that some people question my being at Smith, and my existence overall as a woman of color.'

Her two-paragraph post hit Smith College like an electric charge. President McCartney weighed in a day later. 'I begin by offering the student involved my deepest apology that this incident occurred,' she wrote. 'And to assure her that she belongs in all Smith places.'

Ms. McCartney did not speak to the accused employees and put the janitor on paid leave that day. Stumbles Over Race

Ms. McCartney and her staff talk often of their social justice mission, and faculty say this has seeped into near every aspect of the college. Students can now obtain a minor in social justice studies. That said, the president had stumbled in ways that left her bruised by the time of the 2018 incident.

In 2014, she moderated an alumnae discussion in New York on free speech. A white female panelist argued it was a mistake to ban Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' because he used the N-word; that panelist then uttered the word in hopes, she said, of draining the word of its ugly power. Students denounced Ms. McCartney for failing to denounce that panelist. The president requested forgiveness.

Later in 2014 she wrote to the college community, lamenting that grand juries had not indicted police officers in the deaths of Black men. 'All lives matter,' Ms. McCartney concluded in an inadvertent echo of a conservative rallying cry. Again, Smith students denounced her and again she apologized.

Ms. McCartney appeared intent on making no such missteps in 2018. In an interview, she said that Ms. Kanoute deserved an apology and swift action, even before the investigation was undertaken. 'It was appropriate to apologize,' Ms. McCartney said. 'She is living in a context of ‘living while Black' incidents.'

The school's workers felt scapegoated.

'It is safe to say race is discussed far more often than class at Smith,' said Prof. Marc Lendler, who teaches American government at the college. 'It's a feature of elite academic institutions that faculty and students don't recognize what it means to be elite.'

The repercussions spread. Three weeks after the incident at Tyler House, Ms. Blair, the cafeteria worker, received an email from a reporter at The Boston Globe asking her to comment on why she called security on Ms. Kanoute for 'eating while Black.' That puzzled her; what did she have to do with this?

The food services director called the next morning. 'Jackie,' he said, 'you're on Facebook.' She found that Ms. Kanoute had posted her photograph, name and email, along with that of Mr. Patenaude, a 21-year Smith employee and janitor.

Part 5: 'This is the racist person,' Ms. Kanoute wrote of Ms. Blair, adding that Mr. Patenaude too was guilty. (He in fact worked an early shift that day and had already gone home at the time of the incident.) Ms. Kanoute also lashed the Smith administration. 'They're essentially enabling racist, cowardly acts.'

Ms. Blair has lupus, a disease of the immune system, and stress triggers episodes. She felt faint. 'Oh my God, I didn't do this,' she told a friend. 'I exchanged a hello with that student and now I'm a racist.'

Ms. Blair was born and raised and lives in Northampton with her husband, a mechanic, and makes about $40,000 a year. Within days of being accused by Ms. Kanoute, she said, she found notes in her mailbox and taped to her car window. 'RACIST' read one. People called her at home. 'You should be ashamed of yourself,' a caller said. 'You don't deserve to live,' said another.

Smith College put out a short statement noting that Ms. Blair had not placed the phone call to security but did not absolve her of broader responsibility. Ms. McCartney called her and briefly apologized. That apology was not made public.

By September, a chill had settled on the campus. Students walked out of autumn convocation in solidarity with Ms. Kanoute. The Black Student Association wrote to the president saying they 'do not feel heard or understood. We feel betrayed and tokenized.'

Smith officials pressured Ms. Blair to go into mediation with Ms. Kanoute. 'A core tenet of restorative justice,' Ms. McCartney wrote, 'is to provide people with the opportunity for willing apology, forgiveness and reconciliation.'

Ms. Blair declined. 'Why would I do this? This student called me a racist and I did nothing,' she said. The Investigative Report and the Aftermath

On Oct. 28, 2018, Ms. McCartney released a 35-page report from a law firm with a specialty in discrimination investigations. The report cleared Ms. Blair altogether and found no sufficient evidence of discrimination by anyone else involved, including the janitor who called campus police.

Still, Ms. McCartney said the report validated Ms. Kanoute's lived experience, notably the fear she felt at the sight of the police officer. 'I suspect many of you will conclude, as did I,' she wrote, 'it is impossible to rule out the potential role of implicit racial bias.'

The report said Ms. Kanoute could not point to anything that supported the claim she made on Facebook of a yearlong 'pattern of discrimination.'

Ms. McCartney offered no public apology to the employees after the report was released. 'We were gobsmacked — four people's lives wrecked, two were employees of more than 35 years and no apology,' said Tracey Putnam Culver, a Smith graduate who recently retired from the college's facilities management department. 'How do you rationalize that?'

Rahsaan Hall, racial justice director for the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts and Ms. Kanoute's lawyer, cautioned against drawing too much from the investigative report, as subconscious bias is difficult to prove. Nor was he particularly sympathetic to the accused workers.

'It's troubling that people are more offended by being called racist than by the actual racism in our society,' he said. 'Allegations of being racist, even getting direct mailers in their mailbox, is not on par with the consequences of actual racism.'

Ms. Blair was reassigned to a different dormitory, as Ms. Kanoute lived in the one where she had labored for many years. Her first week in her new job, she said, a female student whispered to another: There goes the racist.

Part 6 (last part): Anti-bias training began in earnest in the fall. Ms. Blair and other cafeteria and grounds workers found themselves being asked by consultants hired by Smith about their childhood and family assumptions about race, which many viewed as psychologically intrusive. Ms. Blair recalled growing silent and wanting to crawl inside herself.

The faculty are not required to undergo such training. Professor Lendler said in an interview that such training for working-class employees risks becoming a kind of psychological bullying. 'My response would be, ‘Unless it relates to conditions of employment, it's none of your business what I was like growing up or what I should be thinking of,' he said.

A few professors have advised Ms. McCartney to stand up more forcefully for line workers lest she lose their loyalty.

Asked in the interview about employees who found the training intrusive, the president responded: 'Good training is never about making people too uncomfortable or to feel ashamed or anything. I think our staff is content and are embracing it.' Coda

In addition to the training sessions, the college has set up 'White Accountability' groups where faculty and staff are encouraged to meet on Zoom and explore their biases, although faculty attendance has fallen off considerably.

The janitor who called campus security quietly returned to work after three months of paid leave and declined to be interviewed. The other janitor, Mr. Patenaude, who was not working at the time of the incident, left his job at Smith not long after Ms. Kanoute posted his photograph on social media, accusing him of 'racist cowardly acts.'

'I was accused of being the racist,' Mr. Patenaude said. 'To be honest, that just knocked me out. I'm a 58-year-old male, we're supposed to be tough. But I suffered anxiety because of things in my past and this brought it to a whole 'nother level.'

He recalled going through one training session after another in race and intersectionality at Smith. He said it left workers cynical. 'I don't know if I believe in white privilege,' he said. 'I believe in money privilege.'

As for Ms. Blair, the cafeteria worker, stress exacerbated her lupus and she checked into the hospital last year. Then George Floyd, a Black man, died at the hands of the Minneapolis police last spring, and protests fired up across the nation and in Northampton, and angry notes and accusations of racism were again left in her mailbox and by visitors on Smith College's official Facebook page.

This past autumn the university furloughed her and other workers, citing the coronavirus and the empty dorms. Ms. Blair applied for an hourly job with a local restaurant. The manager set up a Zoom interview, she said, and asked her: '‘Aren't you the one involved in that incident?'

'I was pissed,' she said. 'I told her I didn't do anything wrong, nothing. And she said, ‘Well, we're all set.'

She talked to a reporter recently from a neighbor's backyard, as a couple of hens wandered the patio.

'What do I do?' she asked, shaking her head. 'When does this racist label go away?'

Michael Powell is a national reporter covering issues around free speech and expression, and stories capturing intellectual and campus debate. @powellnyt

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 25, 2021, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Tensions Simmer Over Race and Class at Smith. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

I don't hire people from these schools anymore. They can go work at a non-profit or stay in Maoist academia.

R38. Except there's another n-word that is also female as the VP.

Whoopsie! R44

Nice to see that immigrants are so effectively integrated into American culture. This woman is already an American-style vindictive SJW when she's only second generation.

What I found most surprising about the article was that it all seemed written from one side.

Why didn't the reporter talk to other students who were there that summer or to the woman herself?

It may have been that students frequently went into that dorm and figured they were okay so long as they didn't stay in the cafeteria, but it was only when a Black student was there by herself that security got called.

It may also have been that Kanoute was well known by her fellow students to be borderline insane, that she constantly ignored rules, was rude to people in her dorm, etc.

Or anything in between.

On a macro level, he seems to be missing one big story and one smaller one:

BIG: Why the massive overreaction when nothing in fact actually happened to her? Did she have a history of this and if not, what about this seemingly minor incident made her snap?

SMALLER: She did in fact go to a boarding school in CT. Was she a "prep for prep" scholarship student at that school and have bad experiences there or were her parents successful immigrant entrepreneurs.

Finally, most people in Mali are Muslim. Is she Muslim and did this play any factor (does she wear a hijab, etc.)

[quote] What I found most surprising about the article was that it all seemed written from one side. Why didn't the reporter talk to other students who were there that summer or to the woman herself?

Because she declined to be interviewed. Did you even read the article? It states she was asked multiple times and turned them down.

I’m not young, and went to a similar (but co-Ed) liberal arts college. This kind of jawdropping use of victimhood to establish power was also common then, particularly after the Rodney King riots. The tension between support staff and privileged students was palpable. I am not thrilled with any of this, but let’s not pretend it is a new scourge on democracy.

Thinking they could have found a few students or former students willing to talk R48, even if off the record.

R49 but now we have social media to amplify and spread the outrage. That's the problem. The local has become global.

r50, it sounds like the students are pretty vocal anyway. it's the blue collar workers who don't have the same platform to amplify their voices.

raci$t le$bian troll alert!

In five years she’ll be designing anti-white training programs for large companies like Coca-Cola.

She has Resting I Smell something Bad Face.

This happened three years ago. Why is it only being reported now?

I'm surprised The Times kept the comments open on this one.

This is old news.

It's not about having "a voice" R52

It's great that the article gives a voice to those blue collar workers.

But a reporter should operate more like a good detective and understand all sides, which can either support their case (students knew the dorm was off limits and stayed away but Kanoute was a cunt who didn't think rules applied to her/she was also nuts and frequently lashed out at classmates of all colors.) or hurt their case (white students snuck into the cafeteria all the time and Kanoute had never been questioned when she was with her white friends)

So a spoiled rich kid went where she wasn’t supposed to, and got the lowly servants fired for daring to question her on it. She wasn’t arrested or even threatened, just told she wasn’t supposed to be there.

Pretty typical story.

This tweet has aged poorly:

Two years later, what is Oumou up to these days?

She is a research assistant at Columbia per LinkedIn, r63

I will guarantee you the ACLU guy who said that death threats were less onerous than racism (paraphrasing) will not have a job soon and the ACLU will be the biggest losers here.

Glenn Greenwald already shitting all over them.

Lol but when a teacher from the Bronx, Rafaela Espinal, gets fired because she refuses to do the "Wakanda" salute (from Black Panthers movie), we hear much less indignant "Woke" voices

^^Not that Greenwald matters, but he will amplify the story and others will pick it up.

Can someone please explain why this old story is in the news?

Because the Woke sect invaded DL R68

ʻOumuamua

It's in the Daily Wail too.

The staff at that school sound like they're used to spoilt brats, but this one's a genuine African princess so that's the difference.

If she'd been harassed before, then it's no wonder she was paranoid. It's understandable. What I don't understand is why someone at Smith didn't realize immediately that she'd been in a closed dorm, but my guess is it's probably because the rich kid complaints are always taken seriously, like those employees interviewed by the NYT said.

And believe me, a genuine African princess looks down on everyone. So-called African-Americans are virtually invisible to her.

ACLU have covered themselves with glory on this one.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R57, the Times is careful to censor any particularly cutting, on-point comments, particularly those criticizing the Times's coverage of anything.

Because it was a high profile story that no one followed up on r68 and people in power acted disgracefully and destroyed the reputations of 3 people.

The report is linked. It is dated OCTOBER 28, 2018 FFS

"The world needs more women leaders, and Smith is where they learn and grow. This, then, is our promise: every student will graduate from Smith feeling empowered to lead at every level of society with unshakable confidence, a strong voice, and a deep awareness of their value in the world." - Kathleen McCartney President of Smith College

[quote]and the creation of dormitories — as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.

I'm sure the white students love that too 😂

"The janitor had noticed Ms. Kanoute’s Black skin but made no mention of that to the dispatcher. Ms. Kanoute was in the shadows; he was not sure if he was looking at a man or woman. She would later accuse the janitor of “'misgendering' her."

She sounds like a huge drama queen.

Do I have to write Black (adj) with a capital B now? Just asking.

"The findings were issued in October 2018 but not widely reported." - NYP

So why are they being reported now?

R83, no. I don't.

R84, the findings are being reported by the Post and others because the very woke Times for some reason decided to look more deeply at what happened and published that piece yesterday.

Ask the the Times why they dredged this up. I'm glad they did, but don't act like the Mail and Post are responsible for the surge of criticism. They're just regurgitating the Times's coverage.

Can the victims sue her for defamation?

Clearly someone working with/for the staffers got the Times reporter's attention. R84

And NYT is looking to downplay the whole "NYT is too woke to be taken seriously" thing

The victims should sue Smith too.

The woke crowd shoots out accusations of racism like buckshot.

But the knee-jerk reaction by Smith's President just made everything worse. Instead of looking into the matter and getting the facts, she immediately takes the student's side. That's not leadership; it's cowardice.

But I suppose that even if she had done the right thing she would have pilloried by the students anyway and accused of doing a cover-up.

For all the people here whining about this story being published now, it's a good object lesson about privilege and class. And those employees deserve to be heard as well.

There must be a reason why this story is only being published/hyped now but we are not being told what it is. This is a bad case of newspaper manipulation of the news and of readers.

It sounds like Smith buried the findings of their investigation. Feel terrible for the lunch lady who can’t get a job. University administrators are heartless generally, their bottom line is all that matters.

I really, really don't like that girl.

R82 From a distance and depending on her outfit, she could be mistaken for a boy.

Oumou Kanoute is stunning and brave!

Pre trump the story probably would’ve gotten much more traction, but with so much “breaking news” that happens the story was just a blip on the radar.

Smith publicized the apology to Kanoute as well as their sensitivity training. What they didn’t publicize was the report that found no wrongdoing by any of the employees named/involved nor was there an apology. She gets to go on with her life while the others have to pick up the pieces of the damage she caused to theirs.

Don't forget too that at some level pushing this story is part of the NYT's attempt to reclaim the "paper of record" mantle and show that they are not partisan.

During the Trump years they very much turned into the Voice of the Resistance and they want to come back from that as it allows them to grow their subscriber base.

[quote]I will guarantee you the ACLU guy who said that death threats were less onerous than racism (paraphrasing) will not have a job soon

I'll take that bet.

Newsweek Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon:

Moral panics are always bad. But our current moral panic around race is a way for affluent liberals drunk on the fiction of meritocracy to erase the class chasm in America, hoarding power while still feeling like the heroes of a social justice morality play.

If your understanding of power results in thinking a person w/ lupus who can't get a job who was happy to be making $40K has more of it than someone paying $78K to study critical race theory at an institution that is terrified of her, it's tremendously impoverished and regressive

Is that from Twitter R99?

She's right regardless.

Even if her name sounds like a character Larraine Newman would play on old school SNL "Moldavian journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon"

[quote]Is that from Twitter [R99]?

Yes.

It’s news because Smith very recently had an incident with a white staff member who very showily resigned after being told she couldn’t “rap” as part of a library instruction unit she was supposed to conduct. She sounded like even more of an asshole than this chick.

Here:

These are times I really miss the "Your misogyny is killing you" troll. Sigh.

R66, I thought you were joking! However, you are not. Wow.

That bitch should be sued.

R47

Sub-Saharan African Muslim women rarely wear hijab.

I’m glad the workers who were deliberately framed as racists by Oumou and a culture of believing anyone black who portrays herself as victim of racism. Also glad that Oumou is now mire famous for being a liar without conscience.

Future employers will have a heads up.

R109 She studied critical race theory, so it's clear she isn't planning on getting a job outside academia, where this episode will play in her favour.

People like her are unemployable anywhere but academia.

[quote] If she'd been harassed before, then it's no wonder she was paranoid. It's understandable.

They investigated her claims of harassment and found no evidence to support them.

R102, there is much more to Jodi Shaw's story. It sounds like the whole environment is racially toxic. BTW, she's a musician, singer and songwriter. This is one of her first videos about what has been going on there.

R112 Oh it's worse than that - she herself could give no examples of the harassment she claimed to have experienced

[quote]The report said Ms. Kanoute could not point to anything that supported the claim she made on Facebook of a yearlong 'pattern of discrimination.'

And to think: Sylvia used to go there...

You fuckers are nuts esp the GGG Nazi fuck.

Don't blame Oumou Kanoute, she's doing what the people who are really to blame have incentivized her to do.

I’m so done with this shit. She is an entitled race baiting cunt who made people lose their livelihoods to push her agenda. She looks like the kids with flies you sponsor with Sally Struthers on tv. Fuck this black bitch. Since she wants to make it about race... she lied she should be held accountable and be jailed. She made a domino effect of shit for innocent people and caused a racial sensitivity training session which wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t even born in America but she is making it her bitch. Racist cunt .

I was recently in a work meeting (academia) where some colleagues claimed being a POC (in academia, no less) requires 2x the amount of energy as being a white person (in academia, I presume?).

The problem is, claims like these go unchallenged.

As a white person in academia, I can't speak for the experiences of my colleagues of color. That said, I wish they'd extend the same courtesy to me by not assuming what my experiences in the profession have been and how much "work" goes into being a gay male in the profession.

The NYTimes -- interestingly enough -- published an opinion piece today bemoaning right-wing efforts to suppress critical race theory. The commenters pushed back. As one wrote:

[quote]I absorbed lots of critical race theory in the late 90s as an undergraduate. It has a lot that is useful, including understanding that race and racial inequality is a socially constructed and structurally upheld phenomenon. Identifying and challenging those structures is a way to tear down racism.

[quote]And yet the theory seems to have ironically shifted to an individualistic, invasive, and shaming dogma that focuses on white privilege and using guilt to motivate raced-white people to act. I don’t see guilt as a sustainable fuel. And I don’t think it’s helpful to make generalizations about any individuals. To me, this seems to be destroying solidarity. Perfect for those in power.

[quote]I don’t agree with throwing the baby out with the bath water, but those of us on the Left must name is excesses and the dogmatic like adherence to this single ideology as the only means of creating racial justice. There are others and better ways to achieve this important goal.

She needs racial sensitivity training.

This thread is making me want to rewatch the movie Mona Lisa Smile.

[quote] She looks like the kids with flies you sponsor with Sally Struthers on tv.

Oh my *word*.

[quote] I was recently in a work meeting (academia) where some colleagues claimed being a POC (in academia, no less) requires 2x the amount of energy as being a white person (in academia, I presume?).

Were these white or black colleagues?

Neither, r122. South Asian

I can’t believe these people haven’t sued the school and this woman.

I think the lack of information from other sources like students, teachers and campus staff point to her never having had issues on campus. If she faced discrimination it would be well known to all based on her actions.

I feel like she deliberately did this to gain attention or bring attention to her cause, she is not necessarily wrong in saying black people face daily discrimination but this is not the way to go about it. It’s really a disservice to the black community.

R124 How could they sue? The people wrong here simply couldn't afford a suit against an institution with a near $2 billion endowment, or a rich bitch. There's a reason she chose to shit on those cafeteria workers, as opposed to other students or the highly paid academic staff or someone else who could fight back.

Has she had her comeuppance yet? i love a good comeuppance.

[quote] I feel like she deliberately did this to gain attention or bring attention to her cause

By “cause” do you mean résumé?

R15 The school knew that the student posted this on social media and gave names and pictures of the people she claimed were racist. That to me was the first issue at hand. The school should have immediately had the student take down the post and handled this internally. Instead they allowed the case to be played out in the court of public opinion.

The school did nothing to protect its employees and allowed them to be bullied and threatened. I am not a lawyer but if something happened to one of those employees because of her accusations I can’t see how the school could avoid some sort of culpability through inaction.

R120 She needs economic sensitivity training, to understand what losing their jobs meant to the blue collar workers she framed.

OK “the kid with the flies” comment made me laugh. Classic DL bitchiness.

I really feel for her. Some people are just born to suffer.

Another good reader comment from the piece I referenced at r119:

[quote]Although I find anything proposed by Republicans to be automatically suspect, I do not believe that, by and large, the concepts of microaggression or white privilege are generally beneficial in any way to society as a whole. Instead, they create implicit conflict in places where there was none and pit some members of society against others by definition. This is not helpful to anyone.

Yes R119/R132

I wonder how the Woke Timesians will react to Michelle Goldberg getting her ass handed to her by NYT commenters who tend to lean very very leftward. And yet even they must sometimes State Their Boundaries.

What did Michelle Goldberg say about this that’s so controversial?

[quote] How could they sue? The people wrong here simply couldn't afford a suit against an institution with a near $2 billion endowment, or a rich bitch. There's a reason she chose to shit on those cafeteria workers, as opposed to other students or the highly paid academic staff or someone else who could fight back.

What do you mean, “How could they sue”? How does any poor person or group of people sue people with means far greater than their own? Many lawyers are happy to take on cases like this pro bono. It’s an open and shut case, too.

R134 Ah yes, the news is constantly filled with those legal victories of David over Goliath. The fact this happened years ago and no lawsuit should tell you all you need to know about the accuracy of your assessment.

If the employees threaten to bring suit, I’d imagine Smith will quickly offer to settle.

[quote]Many lawyers are happy to take on cases like this pro bono. It’s an open and shut case, too.

Even if that were so, Smith has the resources to tangle this up in court for years In an effort to exhaust plaintiffs and bankrupt their lawyers.

yeah, it really seems like the President behaved worst of all. The student might just be a resentful dingbat, but this is really why sometimes administrators shouldn't collapse into a heap of jello at the first opportunity. I blame her most of all.

[quote] I can’t believe these people haven’t sued the school and this woman.

I don't know if they can sue the student directly. I think they would have to sue the school.

[quote] Has she had her comeuppance yet? i love a good comeuppance.

Well, her name is pretty much scrubbed off social media, so I would assume she's having to hide. That's the start of the come-uppance, at least.

[quote] "I'd actually rather receive a hate filled email instead of being beaten to near death by racists. Is that an unusual opinion or is Mr Hall wrong?" / "It's troubling that people are more offended about being falsely accused of murder than about the actual murders that occur in society."

Some recurring tweets. Typical attitude from that side. Interesting logic because with different victims and contexts, they would turn 180 degree with their "blackmails, threats, hate mails/calls, hate words kill" not to mention "misgendering leads to suicide; murderers with blood on your hands".

Also the persistent "Who cares about the few extreme cases (= lies to ruin people's lives) when racism is the bigger and more important problem."

R138 is right. The President is weak and shouldn’t have let her herself be bullied. As the article stated, she has caved to ridiculous demands before this incident.

Too many people in academia seem to think their job is to be friends with the students and not challenge them in any way (intellectually or in an administrative capacity). In other words, they are providing an echo chamber to young people who refuse to be taught. These kids aren’t prepared for the challenges they will face in the world or the job market. I think these are the less intelligent, unmotivated students who take useless, easy classes in “critical race theory” or “Harry Potter and Feminism” or whatever.

Meanwhile, the brainy kids of all races keep their heads down and quietly pursue the STEM fields which will actually eventually land them in good jobs ahead of their peers. Success isn’t about being a white man,, it’s about intelligence and diligence.

[quote] Even if that were so, Smith has the resources to tangle this up in court for years In an effort to exhaust plaintiffs and bankrupt their lawyers.

Oberlin lost a similar lawsuit last year in rather spectacular fashion, even though the appeals are ongoing. So there is recent precedent out there for successfully suing a wealthy college.

Unsurprisingly this story played a prominent role in a WSJ editorial today about lying, which in classic WSJ Editorial Board style downplayed Trump and focused on this, Schiff and the New York Times

[quote]Meanwhile, the brainy kids of all races keep their heads down and quietly pursue the STEM fields which will actually eventually land them in good jobs ahead of their peers.

Until they remove the standards required to attend STEM classes, and see those dragged down to the same level as everything else in modern academia.

and those kids will grow up to be bored as shit in those jobs as well. It's the joy of our ridiculous economy.

R139

They can sue her directly, but she doesn't have deep pockets. If they want real money, they have to sue Smith as well.

They should sue her regardless to create a legal trail of how much of a vindictive liar she is.

R125

They could try to raise money for a lawsuit, or even just for their living expenses. I'd chip in, and I'm pretty broke right now.

Maybe this was her plan all along.

... In place of former notions of fairness toward individuals regardless of race, the Woke left has new ideas of “restorative justice” for racial groups. In place of traditional commitments to free speech, it has new proscriptions on hate speech. In place of the liberal left’s past devotion to facts, it demands new respect for feelings.

All of this has left many of the traditional gatekeepers of liberal institutions uncertain, timid and, in many cases, quietly outraged. This is not the deal they thought they struck. But it’s the deal they’re going to get until they recover the courage of their liberal convictions.

Would the janitor have called the police if the student were white?

Someone in the comment section mentioned that they attended Smith and that the white working class employees were jealous of POC students and treated them shabbily.

R151

Maybe you should read the article.

The janitor was instructed to call campus security (NOT police) if he saw someone in closed buildings who wasn't supposed to be there. The cafeteria worker who was falsely accused told the student that she wasn't allowed to use the cafeteria but backed off because the working class employees at Smith are (rightfully) scared of the spoiled brats who attend Smith.

I'm sure the spoiled brat in the comments thinks the working class workers "oppress" her by not letting her get away with murder.

One of the comments, R152.

[quote] As a POC Smith alumna, reactions on both sides seem to be fueled by a long history of animosity between white working-class staff and POC students. The workers in my dining room at Smith (all white) knew who was on work study and who wasn't-- and wow, did they resent POC students who were wealthier than the staff thought they "deserved" to be. They looked the other way when white students brought an unannounced guest to dinner, while I got yelled at for doing the same thing. Extra food saved for white students who arrived late to dinner because of an extracurricular commitment, while I was sharply told, "The kitchen is closed!" It makes me wonder how many times this student was treated poorly by staff and just sucked it up as the cost of being a POC at Smith, before it finally boiled over this time.

The did nothing wrong to her, r153. She destroyed their lives.

R151 and the quote at r153 are exactly what children say: “Well, you don’t know — they were probably mean to her!

Stay away from children like Kanoute. Avoid them. Ignore them. Don’t interact with them. If they speak to you, pretend you don’t hear them and walk far away. They can’t be accommodated to their satisfaction, and they will resent anything you say or do. They will destroy you.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the comment that R153 posted from the times was completely made up.

Someone up thread posted she put down she’s a research assistant at Columbia, but geez she’s going to be radioactive when she tries to get a job as this will follow her now forever.

I don't know, R156, but the comment section had plenty of posts from POC who said that the school and some of its white staff were racist. Maybe the blue collar staff there really did hold a grudge against minority students and didn't like feeling subservient to them. Note that even the janitor in the story says he doesn't believe in white privilege.

R153 if you were a janitor in a school you'd probably have problems believing in white privilege. Just because the term is out there doesn't believe it's any validity, especially these days when ideas ricochet and amplify through social media.

R157 He says he believes in the privilege of money and class, which seems apt to me and which will always override a perceived white privilege.

[quote]It makes me wonder how many times this student was treated poorly by staff

As it says in the article, Kanoute herself was unable to give any examples of the other racist behaviour she claims had been going on for a year before this. If what this commenter said was true, she absolutely would've listed every example possible, as well as getting her friends who'd experienced similar issues to list them all. Instead - silence.