Open Letter to John R. Finnegan Jr.
Dean and Professor
University of Minnesota School of Public Health
Dear Dean Finnegan,
On Wednesday June 3, 2020, I as an alumna of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) received your letter addressed to alumni. In it, you wrote: “Never has public health needed to step up and contribute more fully and vocally to the change we need as a nation. We must acknowledge and make perfectly clear to others that we are a field that actively works for justice. The guiding principle of public health — and prominently of our school — is that health is a human right. And the word “health” includes the basic right to be safe from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, be it at the hands of individuals, institutions, or society as a whole.”
I am writing to remind you that as a doctoral student in the Division of Health Policy and Management (HPM), you, as Dean did not advocate for my “right to be safe from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.” Indeed, SPH treated me cruelly and inhumanely, and degraded me. I was accused of cheating by an SPH faculty member, Dr. Shalini Kulasingam. I ended up hiring a lawyer so that I didn’t have a false accusation placed in my records. In case you forgot, you and I signed a settlement in which I denied the accusation. You also demanded that I not sue the school regarding this issue. But the settlement still upheld anti-black racism in a lot of ways. It made sure to state that SPH believed I cheated, despite no proof, and that you would continue to monitor me. You had the power to act justly. You did not. You used that power to oppress me. And you continue to do so.
You probably don’t remember the incident because it did not matter to you. But I have lived with it since. To remind you, here is the letter I wrote to Dr. Mary Story who was the Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs. Please read it. I asked for specific steps to prove my innocence. Nevertheless, SPH was more interested in making it impossible for another Black student to succeed. The accusation, triggered by an email I sent to the professor, was racist. Yet, I was told it couldn’t be because the faculty who made the accusation is a woman of color. Please note: White people are not the only ones who perpetrate anti-Black racism. I was also told that what was happening wasn’t racist because a fellow student had said so.
After my meeting with Dr. Mary Story and Dr. Judith Garrard, SPH’s conclusion was that: “Clearly something happened here and there is an academic integrity violation. We suspect that this is a very sophisticated attempt to alter the exam by the Student. However, the evidence, based on the staple, the photocopy marks, and the handwriting, may not be conclusive evidence.” This was despite their own determination that: “We could neither confirm nor deny the handwriting of the numbers. We found an inconsistency in the Instructor’s statement that all total scores on the back of the first page were in purple ink nor the Student’s statement that her notes on “attributal risk” were missing (as indeed they were on the student’s copy of the exam obtained from the Instructor).”
In the official report, it states that I am a “permanent resident, having come originally from Ghana.” Perhaps, reflecting a belief that people from Ghana (and I am not from Ghana by the way), do not know what scholastic dishonesty means, as the faculty member who accused me alluded to me directly and to my advisor.
The then Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (OSCAI) followed the lead of SPH. They concluded that: “The materials provided with the report of scholastic dishonesty included your exam, exams of two classmates, and three extra exams. All of the exams had the same copy marks, staple type, and staple placement, except your exam. In addition, the grader handwriting appeared to be different on your exam than on the other graded exams. Based on these materials, it seems more likely than not that scholastic dishonesty occurred and therefore you would be in violation of subdivision 1 of the Student Conduct Code.” Here is their report.
When the case was settled — never finding me guilty of anything — I went to that office to collect my exam and those of two classmates that I had submitted as evidence. Dr. Donna McAlpine and my friend and classmate Dr. Ellen McCreedy accompanied me for moral support. I was reprimanded by Jessica Kuecker Grotjohn, then Assistant Director of OSCAI. She said that I am “unnecessarily angry” and that I need to watch my “attitude” with her. Never mind the emotional, physical and financial stress that the University, especially OSCAI and SPH had put me through. Where was my humane treatment?
Several HPM faculty members expressed empathy saying they did not believe I did anything wrong. Even though they said they believed I did not cheat, they thought I should “take a deal” of admitting guilt. Afterall, no one would see my records unless I consented to it, so why not just move on? Some faculty members even distanced themselves from me. A junior faculty member I was working with and who I considered a mentor at the time told me, and I remember this very clearly: “You have a lot going on now and are unproductive as a research assistant. I will just hire [name removed] to finish the analyses.” She also asked me to return the material I had received from two workshops that she had paid for me to attend.
I have written elsewhere that HPM faculty did not know my name. Some also referred to me as “the one with the cheating issue.” You can imagine my surprise when HPM faculty used my name in writing a letter asking you, as Dean, to work towards an anti-racist SPH. I don’t think you can do that work without atonement. And I don’t think HPM is making that request with clean hands. But I do have a lot of gratitude for the very few faculty members and friends who supported me. For example, please read Dr. Donna McAlpine’s letter to then HPM division head.
I said earlier, Dean Finnegan, that you had the power to act justly. You did not. You used your power to oppress me. And you continue to do so. You continued to do so in your June 3 letter to alumni (including me) highlighting work I led on police brutality and its impact on health as your commitment — SPH’s commitment — to social justice. You did not mention my name. It is my work. I led that work. My time at SPH was a nightmare. Please do not use my scholarship to show that you care about social justice without recognizing me as the leading scholar on that paper, and without acknowledging what you put me through. Your letter re-traumatized me beyond anything else that has happened nationally in the last couple of weeks. And a lot has happened.
Finally, I do not expect anything from you, from SPH or HPM. I am writing this for my healing and to shed light on the fact that without explicit acknowledgment of harm and atonement, talking about engaging in racial justice just continues to cause harm.
Sincerely,
Sirry Alang, Ph.D.
