I am telling my story to honor the legacy of hero John Lewis. His story is one of a fight for equality and justice that left him broken, but unbowed. Fighting racism comes in all kinds of forms, some of them obvious and others not so obvious. The racist actions that I fought against were disguised as a simple millage election at a technical college.
At first, I didn’t realize the true nature of this racism either. I was Chair of Foreign Languages at Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, AR, which at the time had almost 12,000 students, the majority of which were college transfer students. In addition to this, I co-chaired the Student Success Committee. In April 2013, my co-chair and I received a standing ovation from the Board of Trustees for writing a Student Success Plan for the school.
The first sign that something was amiss came in the Fall of 2013. Local TV stations carried stories of hundreds of students at my school unable to attend classes because their financial aid had not been processed. The official story from our Student Services division was that the financial aid requests had not been turned in on time. Just a little investigation showed this to be a blatant lie.
I naively thought this was just arrogant incompetence by Student Services. So I made an appointment with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, a black man from a small town close enough to my own hometown that my mother knew his family. A relative of his had worked with local businesses to get winter coats for needy kids. My mother was a clerk at a Fred’s Store and knew the relative from helping her there.
The Chairman didn’t give me a direct response but told me the school would give me an answer later. I never really got a meaningful response but the meeting with school administrators let me know that they were all in on the lie and I was now a marked man.
More research led to several startling conclusions. First, when I compared the fall 2013 numbers with numbers from the previous year, I realized that of the approximately 1500 students that had been lost, about 96% were black, although black students were only about half of the student body. Furthermore, I was told that the Board of Trustees wanted an $11 million annual millage from Pulaski County so they could shift the school away from college transfer classes, money from which had been allowing the college to build and expand, and toward technical programs that were basically job training programs. The not so subtle racist move to remove educational opportunities should not be ignored.
To make sure they could get the millage, I was told the board hired a consulting company for about $250,000 to get advice. They got several pieces of advice. First, they needed a stealth special election that only their supporters were really aware of. Second, they looked too prosperous. To give the appearance of neediness, they were told to stop all the building projects and lose some students. And that is why financial aid went unprocessed.
A local teacher’s union helped defeat their millage in March 2014. But I was punished for talking with other people there at my school about what they were doing, something which went against the form of government at the school, which had voting senators from various departments and depended on open dialogue. First I was put on a probationary contract and then I was fired.
I thought the whole thing should have been handled in independent arbitration instead of administrators deciding for themselves. I got a lawyer from the teacher’s union and spent retirement money to live on until I got my job back. By then I had been there 10 years, eight and a half years full-time. But eventually the lawyer said I lost my rights because I had called out the administration’s lies in a faculty senate meeting. I used facts in that presentation, but supposedly using the word “lies” cost me my rights.
Since then, I have not been able to find a college teaching job. I started an alternate certification program for secondary education, but got sick and was unable to finish.
Because I have been unable to get back on my feet, my belongings have been in storage for four years and I am living with my mom, who has had kidney surgery and a heart attack in the last three years. I have very little money to myself. I was helping my godson who is living in Finland. He hasn’t been able to come back for a visit since 2015. Last week I almost had a nervous breakdown due to the feeling of helplessness. But I remain unbowed.
Thank you John Lewis for your inspiration to do the right thing, even if you get broken for doing it.
ps If anyone knows about a job teaching college Spanish somewhere, I would be interested in hearing about it. I have tried to stay close to my mom in rural Arkansas. She is a widow and I am her only child. But it seems the time has come to make a move if I am going to rebuild my life. Besides an MA in Spanish, I also have an MDiv.
