A group of University of La Verne students say they are constantly facing microaggressions on campus — such as the time they say the director of modern languages told Latino students they don’t know how to speak Spanish or when the art curator declared cultural artwork is a dumbed down version of art.
The student group is calling on administrators to address what they believe are systematic racism and gender inequality issues at the nearly 130-year-old institution.
“Every day on this campus, we have to deal with a toxic environment from students, staff and faculty that are not culturally competent and don’t understand the terms of intersectionality,” said Jasmine Marchbanks, a second-year graduate student.
Although the university in an email Thursday said it could not comment on specific personnel issues, there are procedures for addressing inappropriate employee conduct.
The student group, which identifies itself by using the hastag #DCULV, meaning “de-colonize the University of La Verne,” has also brought to light several instances in which they say President Devorah Lieberman has made culturally-insensitive statements to them.
In an interview Wednesday in her office, Lieberman acknowledged students, faculty and staff look to the president to move the institution forward in support its core values.
“We’ve all made missteps in saying something, in not recognizing something, and I believe I am among the all — that I have had some missteps,” she said. “In those missteps, our job is to learn to be better. I’m one of the learners.”
A list of demands
Students first broached the issue in October, giving administration a list of demands to improve what they believe is the lack of cultural competency at the campus. The students said they want to see the university’s “Eurocentric and patriarchal” curriculum replaced with one that reflects the diversity on campus.
They have asked the president, provost and president’s executive board to come up with a curriculum and co-curricular plan that address the issues and ensure diversity training be part of the tenure evaluation process.
Then in November, the student group presented another set of demands to the Faculty Senate. Among the items requested was that the employee handbook be updated to include “training for diversity, inclusion, neurodiversity, mental health, gender, disabilities, sexuality and socioeconomics.”
The group said faculty members want to add culturally relevant information and resources to their courses but don’t want audit all of the general education curriculum. They also asked to create a minority postdoctoral fellowship program to recruit and retain more faculty of color, Marchbanks said.
Both letters from the students conclude by stating: “Discrimination and prejudice are systematic at La Verne. The lack of awareness and microaggressions students face on campus create a toxic academic and social environment.” They sign it without names, using only Students With a Voice.
After the first demonstration in October, Lieberman said she and the provost met with the group 24 hours later. Their goals was to listen more and address every single demand, she said. The university then took out an ad in the campus publication with a list of the demands and the university’s plan of action, Lieberman said.
Pointing to university figures, Marchbanks said more needs to be done improve the retention rate of black students on campus.
Associate Provost Daniel Byrd, who leads institutional research for the university, acknowledged the average four-year graduation rate for African-American students was 39 percent compared to 51 percent for white students, reflecting a 12 percentage point performance gap. Byrd said in an email Thursday he was referring to statistics from the university’s Factbook, based on a seven-year period, from 2008-2014, of traditional-aged undergraduates.
But Byrd also noted that if using the last three years of available data, from 2012-2014, the average performance gap is only 5 percentage points. He cautioned that “drawing inferences from any single year given the small co-hort of African-American students can contribute to high year-to-year variation in percentages, hence the focus on comparison across multiple years.”
The provost office is very supportive, Lieberman said, of the idea of looking at programs so there is inclusivity and diversity — a core value at the university — in the curriculum across the board.
For example, the board of trustees has approved the creation of a faculty position that will support the Culture and Critical Studies program that will launch in fall 2020. That position will also oversee leadership and equity-related courses for first-year students.
Other diversity, equity and inclusivity measures taken by the university since the student demands:
- An internal portal that chronicles recent efforts as well as channel for questions.
- Diversity, equity, inclusion/cultural competency training for all employees.
- Student leadership training as well as listening sessions were conducted.
- An external expert conducted a two-hour dialogue with board of trustees. The board request additional training for this fall.
- A policy requiring diversity, equity, inclusion/cultural competency training for employees should be implemented by July.
- The president’s 12-member executive cabinet has also received in-depth diversity, equity and inclusivity/cultural competency training.
Liebermen said the university acted immediately to respond but noted it already had implemented other initiatives to improve the campus culture, such as creating the Office of Diversity and Inclusivity and hiring a chief diversity officer.
“The change is here and the change is happening,” she said.
At an on-campus protest Wednesday morning, more than a dozen students gave examples of offenses that came from faculty, fellow students and most of all Lieberman herself. The group addressed more than a dozen onlookers of students, faculty and staff.
History graduate student Paril Patel said Lieberman referred to him as “an exotic human being” during an encounter last year. It left him a little dumbfounded.
During her freshman and sophomore years, Marchbanks said the president would try to touch her hair, and when she would tell her no, Lieberman would just laugh off the incident.
“This problem that what we’re talking about isn’t just at the presidential level. Most of the president’s executive committee ignore all the students who are up here,” Marchbanks said during the protest.
Last year, when Liebermen reportedly began to culturally appropriate a Spanish term used to refer to a strong Latina who fights for her community, it bothered Anayeli Dominguez, who approached Lieberman to share her concern.
“I told her ‘No disrespect, but you have not done anything for the Latino community. You claim to be a Latino institution but Latino students don’t feel the help. I would appreciate it if you stop calling yourself chingona,’” she said. “’If you were more culturally aware, you’d know you have done a lot of macro- and microagressions against the students on campus.’”
Lieberman, who got a bit emotional addressing the student’s concerns, said: “As an individual who believes so deeply in this mission and believes in the success of every student, faculty and staff — if, and when offended anybody — I feel that pain. It pains me that I may have offended anybody.”
The university is a federally-designated Hispanic Serving Institution, according to the university.
Since then, Dominguez said Lieberman has ignored her.