{"id":1693,"date":"1987-12-10T03:00:18","date_gmt":"1987-12-10T03:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/?p=1693"},"modified":"2018-10-15T18:12:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T18:12:05","slug":"black-faculty-member-resigns-writes-letter-to-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/1987\/12\/10\/black-faculty-member-resigns-writes-letter-to-the-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Black faculty member resigns, writes letter to the editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">December 10, 1987<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Black faculty member resigns, writes letter to the editor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Johnnella E. Butler, Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies and the first black woman to receive tenure at Smith College, explained her reasons for leaving Smith in a Sophian letter to the editor. Butler said that the College had not remained true to the pluralistic, inclusive vision conceived under President Conway with support from faculty and students. Instead, Butler claimed, \u201cthe chosen direction has been to attempt to diminish the significance of problems here at Smith\u201d and to continue marginalizing people of color. Her resignation was shortly followed by the resignation of Gregory Vaughn, assistant director of admissions for minority concerns. Alice Smith, assistant professor of Afro-American Studies and assistant to the dean for minority affairs, also expressed deep dissatisfaction with the treatment of people of color on campus and later on announced plans to leave at the end of the school year.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Professor Butler\u2019s letter to the editor can be found<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/316\/2018\/10\/1987.12.10.-Opinion-Page-Smith-approach-to-pluralism-discussed-4-e1538923332445.jpg\"> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A New York Times article on the resignations can be found<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/12\/31\/us\/three-who-quit-at-smith-say-college-neglected-minorities.html\"> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>[Last updated on October 14, 2018]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 10, 1987 Black faculty member resigns, writes letter to the editor Johnnella E. Butler, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[68,70],"class_list":["post-1693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1980s","tag-68","tag-faculty","entry","grid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1694,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions\/1694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/weaving-voices-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}