A black director of a “woke” California college’s Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education claims she was fired for questioning the institution’s anti-racism “orthodoxy” and what the term “anti-racism” even means.
Dr. Tabia Lee said De Anza College, a community college in Cupertino, retaliated after she objected to several campus policies aimed toward inclusion.
“I used to be working in a California community college, and I noticed that there was a number of resistance to my even asking questions on anti-racism, policy efforts and language,” Lee told nonprofit Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.
“And I just purely desired to know what folks meant once they were using those terms. And I encountered a number of hostility a number of resistance to me even asking query.”
She told Higher Ed she was canned after declining to hitch a “socialist network,” objected to the school’s land acknowledgments for an Indigenous tribe and questioned why the word “Black” was capitalized but not “white.”
Moreover, Moreover, Lee said she refused to make use of the gender-neutral terms “Latinx” and “Filipinx” due to her belief they only fuel racism.
“I find that the identical toxic ideologies around race ideologies at the moment are being advanced under gender ideologies,” Lee said, based on the outlet.
“I also find that the constant obsession with pronouns and declaration of pronouns causes deep discomfort for people who discover as gender fluid or who struggle with gender dysphoria.”
A colleague of Lee’s also accused the black faculty member of “white speaking,” “whitesplaining” and supporting white supremacy.
The varsity has a really different reason for firing Lee, nevertheless.
In a letter obtained by Higher Ed, district chancellor Judy Miner wrote Lee showed a “persistent inability to exhibit cooperation in working with colleagues and staff” and an “unwillingness to simply accept constructive criticism.”
De Anza College voted Tuesday to not re-employ Lee, who began at the college in 2021, for the following academic 12 months.
Lee claims she felt backlash from administrators shortly after she began the position.
They finally saw a reason to fireplace her when she published a Feb. 18 essay published in “Journal of Free Black Thought” stating: “Under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, in lots of learning environments a neo-reconstructionist race(ist) orthodoxy has emerged that actively works to suppress and exclude alternative frameworks, methods, ways and means for coping with American education’s race(ist) problem.”
The varsity didn’t immediately return a request for comment.