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ithaca
| 5/27/2009 10:06:00 AM Email this article • Print this article |
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Ithaca College professor Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, center, stands with a pair of Malaysian women at a recent dinner. (Photo Provided) |
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Ithaca College professor takes tenure battle public
Ryan Miga
Sociology professor Margo Ramlal-Nankoe is reaching out to the community for support as part of her ongoing campaign to be granted tenure at Ithaca College, alleging that her tenure was unfairly denied on two occasions because of sexual and academic discrimination. She is in the process of filing complaints with the New York State Division of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Nankoe, a native of Suriname and a citizen of the Netherlands, has been teaching at Ithaca College since 1997. During that time, she has written a number of scholarly articles, co-authored two books, and received praise from both students and faculty for her teaching. She has also caused controversy at Ithaca College by actively criticizing Zionism in the Israel-Palestine conflict and making allegations of racism and sexism within her department. She believes her outspokenness made her the victim of an academic sabotage that destroyed her career at Ithaca College.
There is an undeniably sharp contrast between Nankoe's pride in her achievements as a professor and the college's unflattering rejection of her tenure. Nankoe recalls that when she first applied to Ithaca College in 1996, the Sociology Department seemed extraordinarily enthusiastic about hiring her - even offering her a full-time teaching position before she had completed her PhD.
"[The faculty] really wanted me to stay," she said. "They would say this: 'We are afraid to lose you.'"
In fact, Nankoe began teaching at Ithaca College seven months earlier than expected: In what could be considered a moment of foreshadowing, Nankoe was asked to fill an emergency vacancy left by another female professor of color who had been denied tenure by the Sociology Department and had abandoned her classes mid-semester.
According to Nankoe, the discrimination against her started soon after she became a member of the Sociology Department. She alleges that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by a senior colleague, against whom she eventually filed an Affirmative Action complaint. She believes this triggered a factional retaliation against her from several of her other colleagues in which her work was slandered and she was excluded from her department's activities.
Nankoe had also begun publicly criticizing Israel's policies toward Palestine during the Second Intifada in 2000, which she claims provoked a personal bias against her teaching from the Dean of Humanities and Sciences - then Howard Erlich.
According to Nankoe, Erlich pressured her colleagues not to be "too positive" in their assessments of her teaching after she began addressing Zionism in her classes.
"[Erlich] ordered [the faculty] to introduce more difficult standards in the reviews, because I was getting 'excellent', 'excellent', 'very good' scores from students, and he wanted to change those scores," said Nankoe.
In a tenure review, a professor's performance is judged on three sets of criteria: Scholarship, teaching, and service to the college and the community. The candidate's file is initially evaluated by the tenured professors in her department, who vote whether or not to recommend the candidate for tenure. Based on the departmental vote, the tenure file is then reviewed by the Dean, the All-College Tenure and Promotion committee, the college Provost, the President of the College, and finally the college Board of Trustees.
In her first tenure hearing in 2005 Nankoe said she received a bare majority of positive votes from the seven tenured professors in her department - four to three - recommending her for tenure. At the next level of review, Erlich chose to uphold the three departmental votes against her and deny her tenure. Nankoe appealed the negative recommendation, claiming her colleagues had been influenced to vote against her by the senior professor whom she had accused of sexual harassment. She also claimed that Erlich's vote had been biased against her because of her opposition to Zionism.
Following Nankoe's appeal, Ithaca College's Faculty Personnel Appeals Committee acknowledged "serious violations" on the part of both the Sociology Department and the Dean of Humanities and Sciences in reviewing her tenure case in 2005. In spite of the indictment of the tenure process, then-Provost Peter Bardaglio refused to grant Nankoe tenure - this time on the basis of her scholarship record - and set a special tenure hearing for 2007. Although two faculty members were excluded from the subsequent tenure review in 2007 as a result of the alleged violations, two other faculty members whom Nankoe had also accused of personal bias - Erlich and then-Sociology Chair Jonathon Laskowitz - were allowed to vote on her tenure by the administration.
Nankoe portrayed her most recent tenure review in 2007 as even more unfair than the first. Contrary to the previously exceptional assessment of her performance, she said, her colleagues in the sociology department - including those who had originally supported her tenure - unanimously voted against her on all three criteria. When Nankoe once again claimed the process had been biased and appealed the decision, the administration chose to uphold the department's vote to deny her tenure - this time on the grounds that her teaching record had been inconsistent.
Erlich did not respond to several calls seeking comment.
Dave Maley, Ithaca College's Associate Director of Media Relations, said that the administration felt it had fulfilled its responsibility to give Nankoe a fair hearing.
"The college followed its guidelines as stated in our faculty handbook in this case - as it does in all cases - and we're confident that the process for this faculty member's tenure review was appropriate and within the procedures and policies," he said.
Nankoe has not ruled out taking her case to the courts - but, said Nankoe, "My hope is still that Ithaca College will not let that happen, because I have enjoyed my job here."
Professor Joel Kovel voiced his own belief that tenure proceedings could be abused for political reasons.
"I can certainly speak to the extraordinary vindictiveness and remorselessness that characterizes the repression of people on grounds that they violate the taboos against criticizing the state of Israel, or trying to even open up the debate on that subject," said Kovel.
Professor Norman Finkelstein also called into question the overall integrity of Margo's tenure process, citing a number of missteps he believed the administration had made.
"I tend to be skeptical when people claim that their tenure cases were handled prejudicially, because everybody obviously has a personal interest... in claiming that a tenure denial has been unfair," said Finkelstein. "I did take the time to read through Margo's case... and I walked away, having examined her record, convinced that things had gone seriously awry in her case."
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| |  | | Posted: Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Article comment by:
Abdul Haque Chang
we all from University of Texas Austin are with you.
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Suicide has recently come to Ithaca in a very public, and at times controversial, way. This past academic year, after three years with no suicides, Cornell experienced what is known in the scientific community as a "suicide cluster." OK, so maybe you're like me and you thought this whole JetBlue flight attendant story was good for maybe one news cycle.  |
