Confessions of a Token Black Professor

The Trump administration is at it again threatening to take away tax exempt status for those private schools and colleges that promote a woke agenda, but what they are really talking about is race not class. Class is the real issue, but they don’t address it because of their relationship with the MAGA base and their support of anything that is white. But let’s look at what their attack on race is about and can more readily be identified.

Tyler Austin Harper was a black professor of English at Bates College. He is now on the staff of “The Atlantic” a high brow magazine that takes on all issues. I subscribe to it and read with interest an article “Confessions of a Token Black Professor: Why I Lost Faith in Academia.” It is a perfect example of why Trump’s policies on DEI received some backing. It is also a statement of the extremes that Bates College put forth as a left-wing liberal view to counter extreme conservatism now in vogue in our nation in general and the Republican Party in particle. Either extreme is a major problem for America. Immediately below is a review of the article.

“Submission Statement: I included every headline this article has used (A/B testing can’t fool me!!) Anyway, this recount from Tyler Austin Harper goes over his time on the tenure track at Bates College starting in 2020. Subreddit relevance is the folly of elite "anti-racist" hiring practices that often engaged with the bigotry of low expectations, including assigning Tyler Austin Harper, who studies ecology and literature, to unrelated projects due to his race. Harper also posits his idea that as tuition skyrocketed for colleges, several elite institutions post-occupy decided to cater to doctrinaire flavor of identity politics to signal leftwing Bonafide without actionable plans. He mentions a once-urgent referendum to make every major have a race, colonialism and white supremacy class that got voted in, got quietly pushed in 2025. This suggests the very real, draconian Trump admin attacks on education are making colleges buckle, which is bad. This article essentially argues the university created a culture more about self-soothing white radical academics versus listening to black academics especially if they contradicted their preconceived notions. For me, as a black person it’s a no brainer the bigger threat is state-run censorship from the Trump admin. But what needs to be done of institutional illiberalism and condescension that has the illusion of helping people of color.”

Part of the reason for this new approach was to make students of color feel safer. The social justice stuff was seen as hypocritical. They were paying teachers and workers at Bates who were paid less than they should be. The administration brought in outside groups that crushed the union proposals such as existed at Amazon. They never saw the hypocrisy of their actions. Of course, a good many of the under paid faculty saw it, as there were faculty on the non-tenure track making $25,000 a year.

Although Professor Harper had the appropriate curriculum to be on a tenure track, he saw a significant issue which was disconcerting for him to experience. There were black faculty and students who were walking around the campus not knowing if they were there based on merit. That caused the black students and faculty to be seen as illegitimate.

The following are themes of Bates College’s movement to be more engaged in DEI.  The dean explained in 2021 that every department at Bates had to do a racism self-audit. What upset Professor Harper was when he was told that all students would be required to take at least two courses centering on, race, white supremacy, colonialism, and intersecting experience of power and privilege in their major. These issues needed to be in every course including every course in the humanities but also the sciences. The report declared that acting on the proposal would make students of color feel safer. 21% of all courses at Bates already contained these ingredients.

The committee recommended that one of the math courses should be “The role of Mathematics for Social Justice”. Outside programs and experts on DEI were brought in to demonstrate how all of this should be done. What upset the Bates community was when Trump imposed his actions to be against DEI, and the administration and faculty quickly abandoned all DEI requirements. This led to important questions of their commitment to DEI in the first place.

Let me share two anecdote that relate to this situation at Bates. The mother of one of my advisees at EA made an appointment to see me during the sign up for courses for the next term. My advisee was black. He was a great kind student who was hard working and giving and getting as much from our school as you would hope that everyone did.

When she sat across from me in my office, she wasted no time getting to the heart of the matter. I was a great supporter of DEI. She said strongly: “I don’t want ______taking any of those racial issue courses or those regarding social justice. My son knows everything that he needs to know about race. I commented that the courses are not only for him but for all students to take. She went on with even stronger words “that she didn’t want her son taking those courses. She wanted him to take the courses that the white kids took.” She indicated that they had more value for her son to have great choices if he took the same choices as white kids because that’s why white parents are sending their kids to our school.”

Second, the valedictorian in 2026 of Princeton University was a person of color who had majored in African American studies. The issue was not that he was a person of color. The issue was his major was not seen as worthy enough for producing the valedictorian of the school. For the week before graduation, Daniel Yu was sent strong negative emails that his department was not as credible as many others at Princeton and given that, he didn’t deserve to have that honor.

In his valedictory address Daniel Yu made the case for the humanities and as well as the sciences at Princeton.

He said, “When my professor asked us to consider the stakes on that warm Princeton afternoon, is what he was asking us to do: to think beyond ourselves and consider what responsibilities we have to one another. As we go forward, we must hold fast to these responsibilities every day asking ourselves, so what are the stakes of our actions? and our inactions?”

These are the questions that the humanities and social studies ask; and these are the answers that our world requires right now.”

He emphasized the importance of African America studies as well as moral considerations as important as the other disciplines.

But it didn’t lessen the impact of the response that he was chosen valedictorian of Princeton. The barrage of emails was hurtful as well as phone calls and posts on social media. It is my opinion that this revolt also made him surer of the validity of his remarks at graduation. Pretty courageous in my view.