Brave letter brings hope for change
Eighty Northwestern University faculty members, all women, have sent a letter to university leaders expressing outrage over allegations of racism, sexism and harassment on the school’s cheer team.
“Many of us teach topics associated with the history of women, gender and patriarchy, and their intersections with racism and imperialism,” the letter reads. “We are frankly astounded that at the exact same time that we have been teaching our students about the baneful impacts of these phenomena in history and culture, the university where we work has evidently been engaging in them in blatant and illegal ways.”
Professors of history, African American studies, anthropology, sociology, chemistry, English, art history, psychology, statistics and religion were among the signatories.
“We take this personally,” they wrote.
The letter, dated Feb. 11, was sent by Kate Masur, associate professor of history and African American studies, to university president Morty Schapiro, provost Kathleen Hagerty, interim athletic director Janna Blais and faculty senate president Therese McGuire. The Daily Northwestern published the letter on Feb. 14.
On Friday, Hagerty sent a reply to Masur and the other organizers of the letter.
“President Schapiro and I fully appreciate these sentiments, and we want you to know we take them very seriously,” Hagerty wrote. “The prospect that racism or sexism existed in any form in our cheer program — or anywhere at the University — runs counter to what we stand for. As your letter notes, the details have not fully emerged, and one case is in litigation. But we are committed to taking the steps to continue to fully understand what occurred, prioritize accountability and provide an environment free from discrimination and harassment, in all forms.”
The litigation Hagerty references is a federal lawsuit filed on Jan. 29 by Northwestern senior Hayden Richardson. Richardson alleges she was frequently groped by drunken fans and alumni at tailgate parties and multiple other events that female cheer squad members were required to attend. As my colleague Elyssa Cherney has reported, the 58-page lawsuit accuses Northwestern officials of failing to take action after Richardson told her coach and filed a formal Title IX complaint.
After Richardson’s lawsuit was filed, the Daily Northwestern published an article quoting current and former Black cheer team members who alleged a litany of racist comments and policies — a ban on braids during games, telling Black cheerleaders not to stand next to other Black cheerleaders on the sidelines — enforced by former Northwestern cheer coach Pamela Bonnevier. Bonnevier stopped working for Northwestern in October although, as Cherney reports, the details of her departure aren’t clear.
“The letter gave us an opportunity to publicly stand with students,” Masur said. “So often the lives of faculty and the lives of students are separate, particularly with extracurriculars. Being able to make that connection between our lives and their lives was important to us.”
Masur said her history classes discuss the intersections of racism and sexism, sexualized violence imposed on African American girls and women and sexual harassment as a legal concept.
“The idea that some of the people taking this class from me might be subjected to the very things we’re discussing, during campus-sanctioned activities,” Masur said, “it’s jarring and disgusting.”
The letter doesn’t call for anyone’s firing. Political science professor Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, whose signature is first on the letter, said the authors didn’t want to call for specific actions until the lawsuit was complete.
“We simply don’t have all the information yet,” Hurd said.
The letter, she said, is her way of telling the university that she and others see the problem as larger than one lawsuit or one student’s experiences.
“We wanted to push the broader social context and institutional context of what these students have experienced,” Hurd said. “Regardless of what happens with the lawsuit, we need to condemn this kind of behavior and those who sanctioned it.”
The letter asks: “How was it possible that the cheer contract included racist stipulations about cheerleaders’ hair? Which NU employees heard allegations about Pamela Bonnevier’s behavior, and how did they respond? What will be the consequences for those who allowed this to happen, or who failed to follow their legal obligation to report, or who tried to minimize the significance of the students’ stories, or who tried to keep the matter of Bonnevier’s firing a secret? Who allowed the perpetuation of this broader climate of racism, sexism and entrenched fear of retaliation against those who dared to speak out?”
“We want to make sure the university comes up with a clear plan for making sure this doesn’t happen again,” Hurd said. “Whether it’s an ombudsman or some kind of alternative chain of authority or place where people can turn to and trust they will be heard and their scholarships and well-being as students won’t be put into jeopardy by telling the truth.”
It would have been easy for those 80 signatories to wring their hands in private and remain tight-lipped in public — to keep their names and their departments far away from this controversy, to avoid drawing attention to their university’s black eye.
I’m glad they chose the more courageous path.
These professors are doing what all good educators do — connecting the cerebral to the actual, the historic to the contemporary, what’s on the page to what’s in our lives.
They’re also doing what good humans do — using their power and privilege to call attention to systemic ills, even if their own well-being is linked to those systems.
I hope the university engages them in an honest, ongoing dialogue, drawing on both the professors’ academic expertise and their experience guiding and shaping young minds and lives. Students deserve a safe, equitable, harassment-free campus culture. Anything less is unacceptable.