Staff Member Accuses Smith of Anti-White Hostility

Over this past week, Jodi Shaw, a student support coordinator in residence life at Smith, posted three Youtube videos accusing Smith of anti-white hostility and alleged that her supervisor told her that she couldn’t perform a rap to the incoming first year class as it would be perceived as culturally insensitive. 

In the latest video, which was posted early Monday morning, Shaw claimed that this incident occurred in August 2018, when she was tasked with putting together a library orientation for incoming students. Because she has a musical background, she said, she decided to perform a rap. A few days before the event was to take place, she alleged, her supervisor advised her not to perform the rap because it would be viewed as cultural appropriation. In this video, she posted what appeared to be a screenshot of an email from her supervisor, in which they wrote that “use of rap as a medium by a white staff member and student could easily be perceived as insensitive or cultural appropriation” and acknowledged that “this was not at all your [Shaw’s] intent.”

This video came after two others, the first of which was posted last Tuesday and was decried by students and staff.

“Stop demanding I admit to ‘white privilege’ and work on my so-called implicit bias as a condition of my continued employment. Stop telling me that as a white person I am, quote, ‘especially responsible’ for doing the work of dismantling racism,” she said in the first video. “We have the right to work in an environment free from the ever-present terror that any unverified student allegation of racism or any other -ism has the power to crush our reputation, ruin our livelihood, and even endanger the physical safety of ourselves or our family members.”

In a Thursday email to the Smith community, Pres. McCartney responded to the first video (the only one published at the time), writing that it “mischaracterizes the college’s important, ongoing efforts to build a more equitable and inclusive living, learning and working environment.” (The Sophian reached out to the Office of Equity & Inclusion and to the Human Resources office for comment; both referred The Sophian back to McCartney’s email.) On a Facebook group called Overheard at Smith, there were over a hundred comments from students and a handful of staff decrying the video and saying that it doesn’t represent them. 

“I first saw the video because of Overheard at Smith, and I was definitely taken aback,” Erin Smith, who works in stockroom services at Smith wrote in an email to The Sophian. “Neither the Title IX training or the Diversity and Bias Training are ‘blame-oriented’. They’re meant to help staff and faculty recognize when there is a problem, even – especially – if that problem is one they are causing without realizing it.”

“The video was blatantly ignorant, horrifyingly misinformed, and a perfect example of the denial of white privilege that too many people in this world hold, even after being presented information that proves otherwise,” Helen Bezuneh ’23 said. “I worry about the many ways in which Jodi Shaw and other faculty who may secretly hold the same views have the power to make racially ignorant decisions that hurt students. This is unacceptable.”

On Saturday, Shaw posted a video responding to McCartney’s email, criticizing the president for seemingly trying to distance herself and the college from her views. She also referenced the email’s statement that the National Labor Relations Act protects employees who “criticize the policies and practices of their employer,” saying that she felt it was code for “we would fire her but we can’t.” Shaw also criticized McCartney’s statement supporting students of color, saying that she believes this is the college telling students of color that they are not capable of “handling a video where somebody goes off script.” 

The Sophian reached out to Shaw to ask about the claims she made in the first video. She alleged that on two separate occasions since July 31, 2018, she had been discriminated against for being white, claiming that she had been denied an important professional opportunity because she was white and that her race had been used as “justification for the behavior she was subjected to”. Although Shaw claimed she had email evidence of the first incident – which she seemed to later use in her latest video – she declined to forward this email to The Sophian and declined to explain what happened in this second incident. She also didn’t elaborate on how she felt Smith mishandled the July 31 incident and didn’t say how many staff members she had spoken to who had agreed with her – or if any of them were non-white.