To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the article written last week by Abby Pearson, "Women's Studies hire new professor for tenure track" and the manner in which I was quoted and represented in that article. Ms. Pearson wrote in the article about a number of issues discussed at out meeting last Wednesday but extracted much of her information from the context in which it had been discussed.
For example, that article states that I said, "there may have been some truth to the accusation." First of all, I do not believe this accurately describes what I said at the meeting. Secondly, this kind of reporting gives no background or context to what we were actually discussing, and allows people to guess at what should be implied by these comments (and I do apologize to anyone who felt hurt by the implications that may have resulted from the misrepresentation of my comments at last week's meeting.)
Ms. Pearson does report the general idea that I feel the protests last semester did not come out of nowhere, (i.e.: they are related to a number of problems including some of the history of women's studies at Oberlin). What she did not mention, however, was that I also had many problems with some of the claims made in the "Pop Quiz" posters as well as the timing and manner in which they were put up around campus.
While I do personally have some concerns and critiques of the search process that occurred last semester and we did discuss some of these at the meeting, I did not say, nor do I feel (as could have been implied from the article), unhappy with the outcome of our search, which was the hiring of Wendy Kozol for the advanced, tenure-track position. In fact I am happy with our (members of the program committee's) decision to offer Wendy the position and am looking forward to working with her in the coming semester.
This article, unfortunately, is not the first time quotes from members of the women's studies committee and others I know have been misrepresented or taken out of context. I hope that Review writers in the future, will take the responsibility to make more of an effort to present issues (particularly ones of such a sensitive nature) in a more accurate fashion.
Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 14; February 14,1997
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