Hampton Provost Wrong to Imply That Critics Are Racist

To the editor:

The following is a quote from Acting President Dr. JoAnn Haysbert's piece about the cafeteria situation at Hampton University. ". . . The question that a number of us have is, why single out Hampton University . . .?"

It seems that Dr. Haysbert is intimating that Hampton University is being treated unfairly because it is a Black university. It is absolutely outrageous that Dr. Haysbert would "cry wolf" in this way about the situation that Hampton University is in. Save it for the true cases of racism out there. It is outrageous. It is pitiful.

I taught at Hampton University under Dr. Haysbert's leadership and when she was elevated to acting president by Dr. William R. Harvey, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Press on 8/14/03 commenting on the process.

The cafeteria has long been a source of student complaint. Black students. The corrections that the Health Department mandated were to benefit the students. Black students. Where is the discrimination there? Condemnations after Dr. Haysbert confiscated the student newspaper came from Black organizations. Where is the discrimination there?

What is so disturbing about this is that her letter is to the college community of young people, still struggling to make sense of the world. For Dr. Haysbert to give the message to the students that what is happening here is that people are discriminating against the university rather than that the university needed to clean up its act is simply intolerable. Many of these students have faced and will face real racism out there in the world. They do not need a leader who excuses their own faults with that excuse.

I will call on the entire civil rights establishment to roundly condemn this behavior. It is absolutely corrosive to what we all are trying to accomplish. If you read Elena Gaona's initial report of the cafeteria situation in the Daily Press, you will notice that it is very balanced.

She takes pains to point out violations at two nearby white colleges also. The truth is that Hampton University was found wanting and needed to get things done. However, Dr. Haysbert tried to save her own guilty skin by blaming racism. The fact that she would try to impart that message to the young people in her care is unbelievably sad and cannot be countenanced.

Dr. Erenestine Harrison
Ex-Professor of Psychology
Hampton University
Hampton, Va.

Posted Nov. 3, 2003