Faculty send President Glassner open letter as deadline passes for response to national free speech organization

By Tyler Wayne Patterson /// Web & Social Media Manager

The deadline passed on Friday for President Barry Glassner to respond to a letter from a national free speech organization demanding that Lewis & Clark reverse the punishments of two students who used racist language at a party in Holmes Hall. Glassner and Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel David Ellis did not respond to calls seeking comment on the status of the president’s response.

After the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education contacted Glassner, 40 faculty sent the president an open letter. They requested more information from the college regarding racist incidents last fall.

The letter comes after several faculty asked for more information about the remarks in Holmes last fall, described as “racist chanting.” The professors were “met with silence.” The letter asks that administrators end “their silence and help the community understand what happened and what policies are in place that informed our College’s response.”

The letter never mentions FIRE, but does mention the responses from Willamette Week and the Oregonian brought by FIRE’s mention of the College’s “questionable treatment of free speech and of our students’ right to due process.”

These 40 professors from departments across the College signed the letter:

Andrea Hibbard, English // Barb Balko, Chemistry // Bruce Podobnik, Sociology/Anthropology // Cara Tomlinson, Art // David Campion, History // Elliott Young, History // Freddy Vilches, Foreign Languages // Isabelle DeMarte, Foreign Languages // James Duncan, Chemistry // James Proctor, Environmental Studies // Jerry Harp, English // Juan Carlos Toledano Redondo, Foreign Languages // Julio de Paula, Chemistry // Karen Gross, English // Katja Alpeter-Jones, Foreign Languages // Kurt Fosso, English // Loretta Johnson, Core // Lyell Asher, English // Margot Black, Mathematics // Mary Szybist, English // Matthieu Raillard, Foreign Languages // Michael Broide, Physics // Michael Johanson, Music // Michael Olich, Theatre // Mindy Johnston, Music // Mo Healy, History // Niko Loening, Chemistry / Peter Christenson, Rhetoric and Media Studies // Reiko Hillyer, History //Rishona Zimring, English // Stepan Simek, Theatre // Stephen Tufte, Physics // Stephen Weeks, Theatre // Stuart Kaplan, Rhetoric and Media Studies (Emeritus) // Susan Glosser, History // Suzanne Groth, Academic English Studies // Therese Augst, Foreign Languages // Todd Lochner, Political Science // Will Pritchard, English // Yung-Pin Chen, Mathematics

Tyler Wayne Patterson is the web & social media manager of the Pioneer Log. Tyler has developed social media strategies for student organizations. His work been featured on OregonLive and NowThatsCollege. Follow him on Twitter @tylerpatterson