Kee-rap! In a blazing move of courage, the Indianapolis Star buried the denouement of BookGate at IUPUI somewhere in the back of the Metro/State section (even though this story made national news). Here's what came over the wire from Yahoo News. I will, of course, in an homage to Mystery Science Theatre 3000, offer my running commentary. You're welcome

INDIANAPOLIS - A janitor whom a university official had accused of racial harassment for reading a historical book about the Ku Klux Klan on his break has gotten an apology — months later — from the school.

Charles Bantz, chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, apologized to Keith John Sampson in a letter dated Friday, saying the school is committed to free expression.

Lalita: We're "committed to free expression?" Perhaps, in some alternate universe. But you're certainly not committed to speedy due process. That's why it took months to get here. Meanwhile, Mr. Sampson endured the chilled workplace (and perhaps student peer and social) relationships that come with having someone intone J'accuse!

By the way, we are not guaranteed a right not to be offended. Sometimes, a difference of opinion is just that and should not rise to the level of personnel action when we find that we don't like the outcome of an interaction.

"I can candidly say that we regret this situation took place," Bantz wrote.

Lalita: "I can candidly say we regret that this situation made the wire service," you mean. How inauthentic.

Sampson's troubles began last year when a co-worker complained after seeing him reading a book titled "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan."

The book's cover features white-robed Klansmen and burning crosses against a backdrop of Notre Dame's campus. It recounts a 1924 riot between Notre Dame students and the Klan in which the students from the Catholic university prevailed.

Sampson, a 58-year-old white janitor and student majoring in communication studies, said he tried to explain that the book was a historical account.

"I have an interest in American history," Sampson said. "I was trying to educate myself."

But Sampson says his union official likened the book to bringing pornography to work, and the school's affirmative action officer in November told Sampson his conduct constituted racial harassment.

Lalita: That the co-worker, primed for the insult pump, was ready and waiting to be offended is a matter of personal character. I've met people like her. They annoy the piss outta me now and when I was an AA/EEO leader in a very large division of a Fortune 150. That the union rep also was unable to listen well enough or to do the fact finding needed is more than a little troubling. That the IUPUI diversity/AA/EEO leader was snoozing at the switch makes me want to cry. At no point in this sorry mess was anybody going to step back, take that cleansing breath and think.

"You used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your black co-workers," Lillian Charleston wrote in a letter to Sampson.

Lalita: Um, Lillian, even if you didn't like the subject matter, the simple fact that Sampson was reading a book on a topic that impacted his history was of no concern to you. Black people don't own this country's racist past. I remember a conversation with an Afrikaaner woman in Namibia after apartheid fell there. I asked her how they could have let it go on for so long (I was breathless and couldn't tell if i wanted to hit someone or just curl up in a sweaty ball and cry--not my best moment). She said: "We knew it was wrong. We hated it as we hated ourselves. It was just too big." Then she started to cry (like I am right now thinking about her).

In our shared past, there is more going on than we know...any of us. Sampson's willingness to read about this dreadful point in the past shows his courage. IUPUI's inability to handle the situation shows their cowardice.

Civil liberties groups and bloggers who took up his cause said Sampson had been wrongly cited for reading a book that is carried by the school's library.

"I am sure you see the absurdity of a university threatening an employee with discipline for reading a scholarly work that deals with the efforts of Notre Dame students in the 1920s to fight the KKK," American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana attorney Ken Falk said in a letter to an IUPUI lawyer.

Lalita: Hat tip to Ruth Holladay and Nuvo for keeping the story alive.

IUPUI in February informed Sampson no disciplinary action would be taken because the affirmative action office was unable to determine whether his conduct was intended to disrupt the work environment.

"My prior letter was not meant to imply that it is impermissible for you or to limit your ability to read scholarly books or other such literature during break times," wrote Charleston, who has since retired, in a second letter. "There is no university policy that prohibits reading such materials on break time."

Lalita: Since you're educators, I'll try taking an educational tack with you good people. When someone makes a claim that they know is not true, that's called a "lie." Sampson had checked the book out of the IUPUI library.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group that has fought for student rights around the country, said the second letter wasn't good enough.

"By first finding Sampson guilty of racial harassment simply for reading a book in the break room, then refusing to admit the gross impropriety of such a finding, IUPUI makes a mockery of its legal and moral obligations as a public institution of higher learning," wrote Adam Kissel, director of the group's Individual Rights Defense Program.

IUPUI responded with an April letter to FIRE and the ACLU, in which Chancellor Bantz said that he regretted what had happened and that the letters written to Sampson were not in his personnel file.

But Bantz didn't apologize to Sampson until last week, after a column in The Wall Street Journal sparked renewed criticism. Bantz also wrote to the others involved in the incident, including the co-worker who filed the complaint, said IUPUI spokesman Rich Schneider.

Lalita: Lord ha'mercy! There needs to be a complete shift in attitude, training, policy and support on the parts of the students faculty and staff at the university. The only power that school as as a business or as an educational institution is relationships. When classroom relationships are strong, knowledge is more readily transferred (try learning from a teacher who didn't have time for you), when business relationships are strong, referrals are passed. and when co-worker relationships are strong, the business grows as knowedge assets are transferred, enhancing collaboration and cooperation.

Diversity education should enhance workplace relationships, not chill them. I think they need to go back to the drawing board.

"The sentiment the chancellor was expressing in all of the letters was that this whole matter could have and should have been handled differently," he said.

Sampson, who still works for the school, said that he accepts the university's apology but that he was hurt by the allegations and has not enjoyed being in the spotlight.

"It's really frustrating for me because I am not the kind of person that they were painting me as," he said.

Lalita: I think Mr. Sampson is well named--a good man, cut down by a woman and thrown to the tender mercies of the priests and leaders. Glad to see that he didn't have to bring the building down on them all before they got it.

Lalita Amos's blog | login or register to post comments