April 8, 2021.

 

Dear Directors:

 

We are writing to express our deep concern over the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee proposed by the administration and the process which led to it. Orientation 8 from the Strategic Plan presents a vision we support: “Achieving Systemic Change Together: JAC is informed about and is resolving structural and systemic discrimination faced by minoritized students and staff at the College, and works to address systemic barriers.” As a mechanism to guide such a deep transformation, the College’s EDI committee proposal is inadequate, likely to result in boxes checked and no substantive change. (The draft proposal was posted on the portal March 12th and can be found by searching “Draft - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee”.) 

 

Last June, after the high profile deaths of George Floyd, and a number of Black and Indigenous people, some Humanities teachers who teach anti-racism wrote a letter asking for five concrete actions that could guide meaningful change in response to orientation 8 on systemic discrimination. The letter was signed by 23 teachers. It is well known that post-secondary DEI initiatives often fail, and lack of internal expertise has been cited as a reason why. One demand expressed in the letter was that the College leadership seek expert guidance to address systemic barriers. The letter proposed an Advisory committee made of internal and external experts, in other words, from people with lived experience and training in how to do systemic analyses of the power imbalances that underlies these issues. There are many people who have spent thousands of hours of their lives researching, studying, teaching, and advocating on these issues. This reasonable suggestion was ignored.

 

In the drafting of the proposal of the DEI committee, neither the teachers who wrote or signed the letter nor many of the College employees who have expertise and critical insights in this area, including those who have published and been granted release and external grants to do such work, were consulted. Seemingly, no people with lived experience and relevant expertise from local community and advocacy groups or universities were assembled to steer the development of the committee proposal. Even the demands from JACFA’s fall 2020 motion went unaddressed. Instead, the administration drafted a committee proposal for John Abbott communities to respond to via individual email and placed it on the portal amongst many other college "info" notices. No  explanation of process was offered.

 

The proposal contains no definition of systemic discrimination, no commitment to anti-oppression frameworks, no criteria for lived experience and expertise in systemic discrimination to serve on the committee. It uses the conventional structure of a College committee with representation by sector. Accountability is to College leadership, not marginalised communities. Perhaps most dangerously, the only diversity of representation requirements for the committee is for students, yet we know that students who’ve been asked to speak about their experiences of systemic discrimination have often left those experiences shaken and angered. If we understand that at the heart of systemic discrimination are questions of power, then we cannot possibly download to students the responsibility to educate our College communities about systemic oppression.

 

By definition, systemic discrimination is embedded in the everyday institutional policies, practises, norms, and discourses, which are drawn from the experiences and values of the dominant group,  such that in terms of racism, for example, white peoples’ experiences and values inform norms. This doesn’t have to be intentional, and while these barriers are highly visible to minoritized groups, these norms make sense to dominant group members and are thus usually invisible to them/us. That is why you need people with lived experience, training, and advocacy skills at the table. As Audre Lorde famously said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

 

We are urging you to take a second look at your proposal in this light and see a business-as-usual College committee poised to result in little, if any, meaningful change in the lives of minoritized people, because there is no framework to address structural imbalances and issues of power. The voices and analyses of marginalized group members must be centered in a process like this. Yet the burden of change is not theirs to carry. Those of us, who in our dominant identities, too often lead, must learn to listen. The process of proposing this committee was flawed. Process matters. Input matters. When marginalised people gather to talk about their/our visions for change, they/we start from different assumptions and experiences, they/we ask different questions, propose different solutions. How can you not want to learn from these rich insights as we move forward?

 

There are other committee models that move towards meaningful change because the voices and experiences of marginalized groups are centered. For example, the College’s Indigenous Advisory Circle brings in Indigenous experts to advise the College through its ReconciliAction Committee, which then propels those changes through the College. That two-pronged structure of an expert advisory steering committee and a learning/action committee could be effective. But on issues as diverse and intersecting as racism, transphobia, homophobia, classism, ableism, sexism, and so on, we might need something more creative, perhaps a committee anchored by a series of caucus groups. We don’t know what the final suggestions from a truly consultative process might look like, but we do know that the current proposal draws on people from the power centres of the college, untethered from lived experience, and is silent on the types of expertise needed to lead on these efforts. We cannot accept this.

 

Together, we can decide not to rely on the same mechanisms that are part of the problem to solve the problem. We can decide to create respectful conditions for marginalized employees and students to more safely share their experiences, analyses, and visions for change. We can decide to learn how to listen to these critiques, to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” to not silence the messenger.  If we can develop habits of deep listening, self-reflection, power-sharing, and the willingness to shift directions when the need to do so is pointed out, we can become a learning community that takes concrete steps towards these desperately needed transformations.

 

To do so would require however, a willingness to rethink the College’s approach to Orientation 8. That willingness to stop and adjust is central to systemic change. If you, like us, want to see meaningful change, please re-visit the June 2020 letter and drastically re-design how power will operate in this committee. At the very least, please convene a group of people, internal and external to the college, who have expertise and experience to redesign a more accountable way forward.

 

Respectfully,

 

1.     Johanna Okker Humanities

2.     Debbie Lunny HPR

3.     Chris Tromp Physics

4.     Jason Howell Theatre

5.     Elisha Conway Theatre Department

6.     Avery Larose Humanities Department

7.     Laura Calver Theatre

8.     Susanne Olligschlager Visual Arts

9.     Jamie Wilson Goodyear Visual Arts

10.  Olaf de Winter Visual Arts

11.  Geoffrey Cook English Department

12.  Stephanie Claude HPR

13.  Simon Daoust Biology

14.  Tara Walker Business Admin

15.  Manijeh Ali Discipline of Nutrition (Sciences)

16.  Adil D'Sousa English department

17.  Neil Briffett English

18.  Roxane Millette Biology

19.  Andrew Cuk Theatre

20.  Faye Trecartin English Department

21.  Sara Villa  English Department

22.  Paul Di Stefano HPR

23.  Grace Lin Humanities

24.  Valerie Bherer English

25.  David Hill Teacher

26.  Arlene Marsh-Hackett Library Media Services

27.  Sarah Venart English Department

28.  Wendi Hadd Sociology

29.  Antoine Herlin Mathematics Department

30.  Geneviève Caron

31.  Jenny Cockburn HPR

32.  Eileen Kerwin-Jones HPR

33.  Sabrina Gloux Anthropology

34.  Derek Maisonville HPR

35.  Mark McGuire HPR

36.  Sarwat Viqar Humanities

37.  Anna Lepine English Department

38.  Ed Hudson Chemistry Department

39.  Ryan Young Media Arts Department

40.  John Serrati History and Classics

41.  Jesse Ash Theatre Department

42.  Carolyn Murdoch Theatre

43.  patrice jacques theatre

44.  Denise Fidia English

45.  Catherine Greffard Français

46.  Proshat Hemmati French Department

47.  Candis Steenbergen HPR

48.  Monika Karpinska English

49.  Kelly McKinney HPR

50.  Robin Durnford English Department

51.  Gillian Sze English Department

52.  Michele Trepanier English Department

53.  Julie Podmore Geosciences

54.  Jesse Ash Theatre Department

55.  Carolyn Murdoch Theatre

56.  Claire Russell English

57.  Susanne Olligschlager John Abbott College, Visual Arts

58.  Jamie Wilson Goodyear Visual Arts

59.  Laura Calver Theatre

60.  Wendy Eberle English

61.  Michael Richard Physics

62.  Onur Kapdan Sociology

63.  Kieran Hackett Physics

64.  Clea Notar Media Arts

65.  Roger MacLean Sociology

66.  Christina Oltmann English

67.  Jessica Légère Sociology

68.  Jessica Burpee Geosciences

69.  André LeBlanc History

70.  Gediminas Dainius English Department

71.  Jim Katz Psychology

72.  Nanouk Paré Physics dept

73.  chris isaac larnder

74.  Yaël Margalit  English

75.  Zach Fraser Theatre Department

76.  Luba Serge Sociology

77.  Bettina Hoffmann Media Arts

78.  Tracey McKee Media Arts

79.  Luiz Kazuo Takei Mathematics Deparment

80.  Katie Pagnucco Biology

81.  William Boshuck Mathematics

82.  Abdulrahman Karouma Mathematics Department

83.  Lisa Szabo-Jones English Department

84.  Darren Millar English

85.  Charbel Nassif Sociology

86.  Phoebe Jackson Physics

87.  Mitchell Stafiej Media Arts

88.  Sheila Nadimi  Visual Arts Department

89.  Derrick Chung Mathematics Department

90.  Rhoda Sollazzo Mathematics

91.  Kevin Flood Mathematics

92.  Yu Zhao Mathematics

93.  Alice McLeod Mathematics

94.  Brian Larade  Physics

95.  Lasheema Coates  Nursing

96.  Merdad Hage Media Arts

97.  Naleta Kalli Nursing

98.  Ute Beffert Nursing

99.  Christopher von Roretz Biology

100.                 Karen Solsten Mathematics

101.                 Vicki Beaupre Odorico Sociology

102.                 Yudi Sewraj Media Arts

103.                 Ivo Pendev Mathematics

104.                 Tania Peres Chemistry

105.                 Jennifer Fisher Media Arts Department

106.                 Rosalind Belgrave Nursing

107.                 Tania Di Tota Nursing

108.                 Ferenc Balogh Mathematics

109.                 Francine Trudeau Dental Hygiene

110.                 Kent Wood Paramedic Care

111.                 Robbyn Seller Anthropology

112.                 Jeffery Brown Paramedic Care

113.                 Elizabeth Dee Nursing

114.                 Murray Bronet Chemistry

115.                 Shery Mikhail Mathematics

116.                 Christophe Morris Mathematics

117.                 Polina Belts Nursing

118.                 Michael Wees Media Arts

119.                 Suzanne Black Chemistry

120.                 Janet Steinman Nursing

121.                 Samantha Cadotte Nursing

122.                 Jason Lapointe Biology

123.                 Amilia Peskir  Dental Hygiene

124.                 Sean Hughes Chemistry

125.                 Roksana Nazneen Sociology

126.                 David Austin HPR

127.                 Scott Darragh Police Technology

128.                 Ryan Martin HPR

129.                 Shannon Ikebe Humanities

130.                 Jean-Michel Régimbal Chemistry

131.                 Tom Young HPR

132.                 Harold Hoefle English Department

133.                 Faranak Mokhtarian Mathematics

134.                 Laura Ricotta Business Administration

135.                 Alberto Sanchez Humanities

136.                 Paola Esposito Police Technology

137.                 Giorgio Bartolucci Engineering Technologies

138.                 Mario Bellemare HPR

139.                 Michael Lautman Chemistry

140.                 Vandra Holder Nursing

141.                 Johnafel Calluenh Nursing

142.                 ReconciliACTION Committee College Committee - Consensus Group 

143.                 Crossroads Committee - Consensus Group Signature

144.                 Greg Mulcair Physics

145.                Mathieu Bouchard English

146.                Jamie Macaulay Visual Arts

147.               Etienne Portelance Physics

148.               Karim Jaffer Physics Department

149.               Magdy Meimari Business Administration

150.              Jonathan Hatfield Police Tech

151.              Christine Jacobs ILT

152.              Michael Nafi HPR

153.              Julien Charest History

154.               Monika Napier Visual Arts

155.               Stephanie Myers English Department

156.               Joe Tomeo Police Technology

157.              Cam Connor Math