Two recent events covered by the Emerald are poised to collide in a way that will work to the disadvantage of this University. The first concerned Joseph Wade’s suit against the University for allegedly not complying with affirmative action policy in the appointment of Dr. Charles Martinez as Director of the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. The other is the leadership changes in both the president’s and the provost’s office. The danger is that the University’s new leaders will be distracted by things like Wade’s suit, and will not appreciate the important work that has recently been done by the OIED under Dr. Martinez’s leadership.
I am not a lawyer and therefore cannot comment on the legal merits of Dr. Wade’s case. I can say, however, that where the spirit of affirmative action legislation is concerned, Dr. Wade’s suit seems specious to me.
More worrisome is the fact that Wade’s suit appears to be a part of a pattern of harassment against the director of the OIED. This harassment has included University professor Bill Harbaugh’s complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice that the University’s Minority Recruitment Program, or UMRP, violates federal law. These complaints resulted in a Department of Justice investigation of the University. Harbaugh has also apparently filed complaints about Dr. Martinez’s continued affiliation with the Oregon Social Learning Center, from which the University recruited Dr. Martinez.
Harbaugh has a long record of attempting to obstruct diversity efforts. Last year, according to the Emerald, after filing nearly 20 public records requests and posing many more questions about University diversity policy by e-mail, Harbaugh received a letter from General Counsel Melinda Grier saying that the University would no longer answer his questions. Rumor has it that Harbaugh has been in contact with Wade about his lawsuit.
What all of this means is that a couple of people – without any mandate from our community – are attempting to obstruct the University’s efforts to make progress where diversity issues are concerned. Exercising free speech and voicing dissent is one thing. Attempting to use grievance processes and lawsuits to undermine the implementation of a diversity plan overwhelmingly approved by the faculty senate, and in which University leadership has invested significant funds, is quite another thing. It is an effort by a few to impose their will on our community through bureaucratic means.
All of this is old news to those who have followed UO’s efforts to address a persistent lack of diversity among its faculty and students. What is new is that University leadership is changing at the highest levels. It would be easy for this new leadership to hear only the complaints and to overlook the important work the OIED has accomplished under Dr. Martinez’s leadership.
Despite the harassment just noted, Dr. Martinez has been remarkably productive in his short tenure as director of the OIED. He helped the University community reach agreement on a diversity plan that had been the focus of years of controversy. He has fairly but firmly insisted that departments develop substantive diversity plans. When funds were lacking to support these plans, he worked with the provost’s office to provide internal grant funds to support departmental diversity efforts.
Dr. Martinez helped establish the UMRP, which – as head of the Department of Teacher Education – I can testify has been a very useful tool in our faculty recruitment efforts. These funds have been used not to enhance faculty salary, but to support activities like symposia and conferences that serve UO students and Oregon citizens generally.
More important than all of this, Dr. Martinez has worked behind the scenes to build effective coalitions on a number of diversity-related issues. In particular, I have been impressed with the way Martinez has remained connected to both faculty communities and local networks of educational justice advocates. Having a foot in both of these worlds is difficult to achieve, let alone to sustain. It is impossible to hold a position like the director of the OIED and have everyone approve of your work. There are always critics on both the right and the left who will think such an office is doing too much or too little. Dr. Martinez has shown himself to be an effective navigator of these political differences. And the University has benefited from his ability to do so.
Our new University leaders are responsible for assembling a team that can move the University forward. As they look at the OIED, I hope that they look past the complaints of a partisan few and assess the real substance of the work done at that office. From my perspective as head of the Department of Teacher Education, Dr. Martinez and his colleagues in the OIED have been a great support in our efforts to promote educational diversity and equity. I know I am not alone in this assessment.
Dr. Jerry Rosiek
Associate Professor of Educational Foundations
Head of the Department of Teacher Education
University of Oregon