“I have never truly felt the support and encouragement that I was expecting as a growing teacher within this program, and while I never thought that it would be this difficult, I recognize that the adversity I’ve been facing has been deficit-based criticism, racially charged rhetoric, and feeling powerless throughout the entire process,” said Kai Burton, who graduated in 2018.

The Providence College Department of Elementary and Special Education (ESE) discriminates against students of color, denying many of them access to the major and contributing to the deficit of teachers of color in Providence and other Rhode Island school systems, says the Providence College Coalition Against Racism (PC-CAR).

The most recent graduating class, 2019, had two students of color in a graduating class of 53, a percentage of 3.8 percent. This percentage compares unfavorably to the 17.8 percent students of color at Providence College as a whole. There were only 4 students of color in a class of 59 (6.8 percent) in 2018 so the trend is in the wrong direction. The low graduation rate of students of color in the Elementary and Special Education Department contributes to the fact that only 23 percent of Providence schoolteachers are teachers of color in a system that enrolls 91 percent students of color. Only 11 percent of teachers statewide are teachers of color.

At a press conference, Providence College Sociology Professor Eric Hirsch presented some grim fats about Providence College’s Department of Elementary and Special Education.

The department uses a two-track policy that privileges white students over students of color, said Hirsch.

• When white students face difficulties, they are encouraged and given positive advice on how to stay on track. Students of color facing similar problems are told they don’t have what it takes, are given extra classes and are encouraged to give up their dream to become teachers.
• Initial assessments in the sophomore year until recently featured essays that were evaluated based on grammar. Bi-lingual students using non-traditional grammar were forced to rewrite their essays many times or were denied access to the major.
• Students of color are assumed to be from poor neighborhoods and from families who do not support their academic work. White students are assumed to be from upper middle class neighborhoods with supportive families.
• White students are placed in positive student teaching classrooms while students of color are placed in deficit-focused classrooms and are required to take non-college credit courses.

The result of these discriminatory practices is attrition from high percentages of student interest in the ESE major as students move through their PC careers. 20 percent of students in 2018-2019’s first year class who wanted to major in ESE were students of color. But that percentage was 9 percent in last year’s sophomore class, 6 percent in the junior class, and 4 percent in the graduating class. Students often declare another major or have their graduation delayed even though they desperately want to become teachers.

Chandelle Wilson is a Massachusetts educator who read a statement from a student of color who was forced out of the PC ESE program. The young woman, who once dreamed of being a teacher, now suffers psychologically.

“I’ve been told by my advisers, supervisors, and professors that I, ‘should choose a new major because the work may end up being too hard for me,’ before the work even began, that, ‘if I ask myself whether or not I want you to teach my grandchildren, I would have to say no.'” said Kai Burton, a 2018 PC-ESE graduate relating her struggle to stay in her major and graduate as a teacher.

“I have never truly felt the support and encouragement that I was expecting as a growing teacher within this program, and while I never thought that it would be this difficult, I recognize that the adversity I’ve been facing has been deficit-based criticism, racially charged rhetoric, and feeling powerless throughout the entire process,” continued Burton.

“I’ve been insulted, ignored, underestimated, belittled, dismissed, reprimanded, and more. While I’ve watched other students make the same mistakes that I have, and struggle with the same content, they receive a, ‘that’s okay, hand it in next week if you can’ while I lose a full letter grade or simply get denied a chance to make up the work at all. It’s never a surprise to me when those other students aren’t students of color, because it feels like that’s all it really takes at the end of the day to be treated with any kind of respect or dignity in this program.”

Christina Cahill, another recent graduate of the PC-ESE, read a statement from a white, non-Latina student contrasting the struggles of Kai Burton with her own, easier path to graduation and completion of her college work.

“I watched many students of color leave the Providence College Elementary Special Education department throughout my four years,” read Cahill. “I also watched Kai Burton fight for her place in the program for four years. Kai and I went through the Providence College Elementary Special Education department together; however, we did not share the same path. Our paths started to go separate when Kai and a few other students of color got pulled aside after a meeting and were told that this major was too hard for them our freshman year. When Kai and I both had to make revisions to our ‘failed’ ESE essays sophomore year, Kai also had to go to mandatory tutoring. While I had my Friday’s off junior year, Kai was overloaded with extra course work and a second practicum because she was not yet ‘proficient’ enough to be considered part of the ESE program. When I was getting excited for graduation senior year, Kai was still not yet deemed ‘worthy’ to be part of the program.

“I’ve had the privilege to watch Kai teach, and she teaches from the deepest part of her heart. She knows what is means to be committed to students, even when her professors were not committed to her. I used to think of it as heartbreaking that professors had the power to weed out the students they did not want to become teachers. I love walking into my classroom every morning and being greeted with a smile and hello from all my students. The idea that a professor can take that joy away from a person who wants to be a teacher is no longer heartbreaking to me, it’s despicable. It is so despicable that it needs to change…. We owe this to the students who have their hearts set on becoming teachers. We owe this to the children the future teachers will teach.”

The discriminatory practices cited by PC-CAR have only come to light due to a whistleblower in the Department of Elementary and Special Education, Dr Anthony Rodriguez, who joined the Department in 2012. The response by the ESE Department to Rodriguez revealing such discrimination was to engage in a cover-up, as well as seven years of harassment designed to silence him and force him out of the department, says PC-CAR. The most serious action was an unjustified department vote to deny Dr Rodriguez tenure and promotion. This decision was overturned by the college’s Committee on Academic Rank and Tenure and by President Brian Shanley. Professor Rodriguez has been forced to move his office to a different building to avoid verbal and physical harassment.

“I noticed these problems before my first semester working in the department,” said Dr Rodriguez. “When I voiced concerns, they were brushed aside as coincidental. Later, when pressed further, I was told that other people in the department had acted inappropriately for decades, but it is not them. When I continued to ask questions, I was roundly silenced by the dept and the administration – this act of silencing students has been a theme for a long time.”

Read the full comments of Dr Rodriguez here.

The college administration has been aware of the discrimination in the Department of Elementary and Special Education for at least a decade, says PC-CAR. They have been presented with convincing evidence of this by Dr Rodriguez, by students in the department, and by PC-CAR. The February 2016 student occupation of the President’s office was ended with the assurance that effective action would be taken to correct the problems in ESE, among many other issues. The administration has taken some actions, removing the Department Chair and attempting to create a more collegial atmosphere in the department. But the real problems are the underlying discriminatory practices. They have not been effectively addressed as shown by the extremely small percentage of students of color in the last graduating class.

Victor Terry, a PC graduate, now teaches in the Boston school system. He spoke of the importance of having teachers of color teach students of color, saying, “What keeps me in the classroom is the enthusiasm students have for me when they realize that I not only see them, but I celebrate their intersecting identities. When they see that they will not be interrogated for their culture, that they are able to come into the classroom and simply be, and not have to perform to a standard of white supremacy that keeps them relegated to a substandard place in our society…”

The Providence College Coalition Against Racism demands that the administration take whatever actions are necessary to end race/ethnic/bi-lingual discrimination in the Department of Elementary and Special Education and that they set targets (not quotas) for the graduation of students of color from the department and take the necessary actions to meet those targets as follows:

1. Graduating Class- Targets for Percentage of Students of Color: 2021 = 15%, 2022 = 20%, 2023 = 25%, 2024 = 30%, 2025 = 35%, 2026 = 40%
2. In order to ensure that the college makes a good faith effort to reach these targets, we are creating a Community Advisory Board with the assistance of the Providence NAACP. This board will evaluate progress toward these targets and help to verify that only the appropriate practices are used to reach them.
3. PC-CAR demands that there be no further retaliation, no ongoing attempts to silence Dr Rodriguez or his faculty and student supporters. Such attempts will immediately be the subject of future PC-CAR press releases and actions.

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