{"id":1649,"date":"2013-02-19T10:30:51","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T02:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2013-02-17T21:53:25","modified_gmt":"2013-02-17T13:53:25","slug":"wang-pings-statement-on-her-suit-with-macalester-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1649","title":{"rendered":"Wang Ping’s Statement on her suit with Macalester College"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wang<\/a>The following is an open letter from Chinese \/ American poet Wang Ping<\/a>. For more information on the case, see this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dear Friends, this statement serves the following purposes:<\/p>\n

1. Clarify my litigation with Macalester to prevent misunderstandings.
\n2. Macalester is investigating my work, teaching, service, education and employment history, medical, criminal and tax records since my childhood, including everything I\u2019ve done with the Kinship of Rivers<\/a> project. This involves hundreds of people. I just want to inform you that we have done nothing illegal. Kinship of Rivers project promotes arts and cultural exchanges between China and USA. My applications for promotion, appeal for the denial, and my complaint to the Human Rights Department about the discrimination and retaliations are my right as a legal alien.
\n3. Please hang onto your emails, blogs, photos\u2026as Macalester has requested everything, every word and document in every possible form related to the above subjects, and since I know I don\u2019t have everything (some forgotten, some deleted in the past), please go through my answers to Macalester\u2019s interrogatories and forward your additional information.
\n4. Transform the destructive force into something more constructive so that we can all work together to achieve Macalester\u2019s mission as well as mine: multiculturalism, internationalism and service to society, and most importantly, the focus on justice and human rights.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a quick outline of what happened.<\/p>\n

1. In 2010, I applied for the promotion and was denied, even though I had 10 published books, and met all the requirements for excellent teaching and service according to the college Handbooks, especially in comparison to my colleague who applied for an early promotion, who had less credentials.
\n2. I appealed to the college.
\n3. The Appeal Committee found several procedural errors (breach of academic freedom as one of them) and recommended President Rosenberg to correct the errors.
\n4. President Rosenberg denied the appeal.
\n5. I started experiencing retaliations to prevent me from doing my research and then teaching.
\n6. I filed a discrimination charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2011.
\n7. EEOC found strong discriminating evidences and investigated Macalester, and then dismissed my case in 2012. I was told they did find that I was disadvantaged by unequal treatments, but they couldn\u2019t find the direct link to the discrimination. EEOC gave me 90 days the right to sue. (Dec. 3, 2012)
\n8. My attorney contacted Macalester, via phone and email, for a reconcile meeting, in November 2012. We made it clear that it was not about money, but about better work relationship with the administrators.
\n9. The administrators ignored my request for such a meeting.
\n10. On December 3, 2012. My attorney served Macalester the lawsuit for the ongoing retaliation I\u2019d been experiencing since my internal faculty appeal in 2010, which include the funding cuts for teaching, student publications and classroom work, and denial of support for my major scholarly work, the Kinship of Rivers project.
\n11. On 12-21-2012, Macalester answered it by filing the suit with the court and thus brought the case into the public sphere.
\n12. Fagre & Benson (Macalester\u2019s law firm) requested every name of the people I have talked\/written to about the promotion, denial, retaliation, and Kinship of Rivers project (phone, email, blog, Facebook, twitter, diaries, videos, and any other medium of communications). They also requested all of my legal, tax and medical history, everything about the Kinship of Rivers project, the promotion and my complaints.
\n13. Fagre & Benson set 2\/15\/13 to depose me.
\n14. I asked to postpone the deposition because it was during the Chinese New Year.
\n15. Fagre used a British teaching kit for kindergartens to repute that Chinese New Year is not religious or cultural, therefore my request is \u201copportunistic,\u201d and I need to \u201cswear under oath\u201d that Chinese New Year is religious or cultural\u201d for the postpone request.
\n16. 2-1-2013, Fagre & Benson declared that mediation is impossible at this stage and asked the judge to set the trial date in court 1\/14\/14, then requested us to comply by Feb. 22, 2013. (See the informational statement)<\/p>\n

Since 12-21-2012, I have been working day and night to answer their interrogations and gather the materials they demanded. I have no sleep, just naps between the labor; no holidays (Christmas and New Year), no spending time with my children, canceled my trip to take my children to Wisconsin Dells (no money or time), and of course, no more time to complete the manuscript my publisher has been waiting for. (I am on half-pay sabbatical to complete the book.)<\/p>\n

The materials I\u2019ve gathered filled up a 32 GB flash drive. Since it contains only a small portion of what they want, Macalester will come to my home and office to get the materials, which include the 2000 river flags made by 2000 people along the entire Mississippi, the St. Croix, the Minnesota, the Fraser, the San Antonio, and other rivers. These flags are our gifts to the Yangtze River when we travel to China in July and August.<\/p>\n

Macalester also demanded me to pay its legal fees. Their law firm is the most expensive one, and they are using many hours to push for a trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is very, very punishing,\u201d said a civil rights lawyer from NYC.<\/p>\n

Everyone I talked to, lawyers, friends, colleagues, is confused. Why is Macalester so punitive, so unwilling to consider a better work relation?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t answer. All I know is that I kicked the hornet\u2019s nest by complaining about the administrator\u2019s unequal treatments and retaliation.<\/p>\n

I always know that as a woman and a Chinese immigrant, I have to work harder and achieve more in every aspect: scholarship, teaching and service, in order to survive the academia, especially at Macalester with its record of high minority faculty turnover<\/p>\n

I was confident I could survive when I started teaching at Macalester in 1999. I knew how to work hard and efficiently, especially when I do what I love: writing, teaching, and doing good things for the community. I loved Macalester\u2019s mission for multiculturalism, internationalism and civic engagement, especially its focus on justice and human rights; I loved the students, loved my colleagues, and loved the communities. I had already published five books with awards and national fellowships. So as long I kept my mouth shut, I should be able to make it.<\/p>\n

Thus I began my life with Macalester, three weeks after I gave birth to my second son through a difficult labor with surgery. I could barely walk when I started my full teaching loads, Monday Wednesday and Friday, from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm. I asked for a later schedule, because it was too stressful, emotionally and mentally, to break away from my three-week-old newborn in the early mornings. My kind-hearted department chair told me I should \u201cendure\u201d it. I understood he was trying to protect me from being marked as a \u201ctrouble maker,\u201d as he had protected me as my chair during my first six years at Macalester. He even tried to protect me in 2010 after his retirement, advising me not to complain to EEOC because it would definitely mark me as a \u201ctrouble maker.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I endured and gave everything I had to Macalester, teaching, advising, researching, and serving on committees. I published ten books, gave hundreds of readings and lectures at Macalester and around the world, helped expand the creative writing program from a single tenured position into four tenured positions, worked with Asian Studies to build a thriving Chinese program, created many interdisciplinary courses that combine writing with immigration, environment, rivers, justice, public health, spirituality, and science. I spent hundreds of hours writing grants to take students on canoe trips along the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers and Lake Itasca, introducing the students to Minnesota\u2019s forgotten history and living nature. I also spent many hours (fund raising and logistics) to bring 43 nationally and internationally renowned poets, writers and artists to Macalester, including the Nobel Prize finalist Bei Dao, Pulitzer-winner Yusef Komunyakaa, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, explorer and environmentalist Will Steger, great poets and writers from China, from Native American communities, and the park rangers from the National Park Service. My efforts have been used as examples of Macalester\u2019s mission. My classes, trips and interviews appeared constantly on Macalester\u2019s web homepage, news and journals. My students became Rhode Scholars, best-selling authors with major literary awards, professors, and one is among the top 3 candidates for a tenure tracked position for fiction at Macalester.<\/p>\n

President Rosenberg (the same president who denied me in 2010) praised in my 2005 promotion letter that my teaching \u201cis well-suited to Macalester\u2019s focus on internationalism,\u201d that \u201cas an exceptionally gifted poet, writer and theorist,\u201d I had \u201calready accomplished more than a lifetime\u2019s work,\u201d and finally, in addition to my \u201cteaching and\u2026scholarly and creative productivity,\u201d my \u201cservice brings honor to Macalester College\u201d (Wang Ping\u2019s 2005 FPC promotion letter).<\/p>\n

People always ask: How did you get all these things done? Did you ever sleep?<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m doing what I love,\u201d I reply with a smile. It\u2019s the truth. At the same time, deep down in my heart, I know I\u2019ve been stacking up my credentials so I could prove to Macalester that I am good enough, that I could stand next to my colleagues as an equal.<\/p>\n

When I applied for the promotion in 2009, everyone believed it should be straightforward. I added 3 more books to my \u201clifetime work,\u201d (10 in total), had won more book awards and fellowships (including McKnight Award, Minnesota Book Award, etc.), won Mellon Grants to create 3 more interdisciplinary courses that the college used as samples of Macalester\u2019s mission, served on various committees for Macalester and ACTC and other literary communities at a loss of my own salary (I was doing so much service that I had to take a course reduction at 1\/5 of salary cut). I traveled to different cities as Macalester\u2019s \u201cRoad Scholar.\u201d My photos decorated the college\u2019s admission office as well as President Rosenberg\u2019s office and hallway as a showcase for Macalester\u2019s internationalism.<\/p>\n

One can imagine the shock and confusion when the Provost called me into her office and told me I was denied the promotion because I was a poor teacher and didn\u2019t do enough for Macalester. She told me I must not compare myself to my colleague who got his second early promotion with 2 books, must not tell the denial to anyone, must not apply again for years to come.<\/p>\n

I appealed; the appeal committee found the denial violated the academic freedom and Macalester\u2019s handbook rules. President Rosenberg refused to correct the errors.<\/p>\n

January 2011, I filed the discrimination claim to the Human Rights Department and EEOC.<\/p>\n

When the case was dismissed in 2012, I had two options: 1) to let it go; 2) to bring the issues to the court.<\/p>\n

By then, I had applied for the promotion again. Thanks to the support from my students, colleagues and friends from Macalester, the Twin Cities and the nation, and through many efforts to force the administrators to correct the errors that would have jeopardized my second application (please see details in \u201cPing\u2019s legal timeline with Macalester\u201d), I was finally granted the promotion. I wanted to devote my energy to teaching, writing, and service, and devote more time to my growing children. I was willing to let it go even though I had been experiencing more and more difficulties teaching and researching at Macalester: the cut of my department fund to bring visitors, field trips, and making photocopies of students writing (I had to pay some of the teaching cost out of my own pocket), the President and Provost\u2019s refusal to allow Macalester to sponsor the Kinship of Rivers project as its fiscal agent when a museum showed interest in giving the seed fund, and the grant officers telling me clearly that they are not allowed to help me in any possible way with my project.<\/p>\n

But I still hoped for one thing: to have a better work relationship with the administrators so that I could teach, research and serve better at Macalester.<\/p>\n

So my lawyer contacted Macalester for reconciliation. When we got no answer, we served a complaint to Macalester on 12-03-2012.<\/p>\n

The administrators responded by filing in court on 12-21-2012, setting up a deposition and trial date, pushing this into the public arena.<\/p>\n

The legal process is arduous, expensive, and destructive, for both sides. A single face-to-face meeting, a gesture of mutual respect, a kind word from the President, could have averted this suit\u2026<\/p>\n

My life is shattered, of course. Worst of all, so many of my friends and colleagues are dragged into this mess, thousands of dollars will be spent, more ill feelings, misunderstandings and isolation generated, morale destroyed\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much more does a woman have to do to be an equal to a man?\u201d asked my colleague, weeping when she heard I had been denied promotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much more does a MINORITY WOMAN have to do to be an equal?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

This is the question I have been asking myself every day since the Provost told me that I didn\u2019t do enough service, even though I sacrificed my own salary to serve Macalester and the communities, that I had failed to teach good criticism and techniques even though I had every student\u2019s writing to prove them otherwise\u2026<\/p>\n

I came to America with $26 in my pocket, with a dream for a better life in a country where one would not fear to be harassed, terrorized, or arrested for speaking truths, where one had the freedom for creative, individual and spiritual expressions, where everyone was treated as an equal. In America, I thrived, earning my PhD, becoming a teacher, author, photographer, judge for literary communities, a public speaker, and director of the Kinship of Rivers project that brings the two greatest rivers together through poetry, art, music, dance, food\u2026I do all these as my gratitude to the two cultures that raised and nurtured me, to the people from the two countries who believed in me.<\/p>\n

I ask to be treated as an equal to my colleagues despite my gender, religion, and nationality. I ask for reconciliation, peace and harmony. I know my teaching and scholarship and service have brought only honors to Macalester, and will bring more to Macalester and our communities.<\/p>\n

There is no need to punish and drag a hard working Chinese immigrant to ruins. We, immigrants, women, and minorities are also humans. We have the right to be treated equally, to stand up for ourselves when we feel wronged. We work hard to contribute to American culture and economy. We are part of the American Dream. Please don\u2019t shatter it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still hoping to sit down face to face with the administrators for a conversation, to acknowledge and understand each other\u2019s needs, to transform this into something positive, collaborative, and beneficial to everyone in the community. Again, it\u2019s not about money, but about working together to make Macalester truly live up to its standards.<\/p>\n

During the intense month of gathering evidences for Macalester\u2019s discovery on me, I have rediscovered myself and the communities where I have thrived. Without your support and inspirations, I could not have arrived where I am now. So thank you, my students, friends, colleagues, and all the communities who have worked with me and supported me through the journey. I want to assure you that you\u2019re safe. Everything we\u2019ve done together only adds beauty and goodness to the communities. I want to thank my two children who have endured my \u201cwork habits.\u201d I promise that as soon as the tangle is over, I\u2019ll take you on a well-deserved vacation. I am especially proud of Macalester, its students, faculty and staff I\u2019ve worked with so closely and spiritually in the past decade. I have always believed, and still believe, that Macalester is truly dedicated to justice and human rights, to \u201cits high standards for scholarship and its special emphasis on internationalism, multiculturalism, and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let this be our truth and harmony. Let this be our daily deed.<\/p>\n

List of References and Documents
\n(Please email jingputuo@gmail.com<\/a> for all the documents listed here. You can also find them at the Ramsey Court)<\/p>\n

1. Macalester\u2019s court filing on Wang Ping 12\/21\/2012 (with the 1st set of interrogatories, document requests, and deposition of Wang Ping)
\n2. Wang Ping\u2019s court filing on Macalester 1\/9\/2013
\n3. Wang Ping\u2019s answers to Macalester\u2019s interrogatories
\n4. Informational statement-Macalester
\n5. Wang Ping\u2019s Timeline at Macalester
\n6. Wang Ping\u2019s legal timeline at Macalester (all the names are in initials, except for Wang Ping)
\n7. Wang Ping\u2019s appeal letter to the Appeal Committee
\n8. The Appeal Committee\u2019s letter to President Rosenberg
\n9. President Rosenberg\u2019s denial to the appeal
\n10. Wang Ping\u2019s post denial meeting with the Provost and FPC chair
\n11. 2005 FPC consensus letter for Wang Ping\u2019s tenure promotion
\n12. 2010 English Department CRC letter for Wang Ping
\n13. 2010 FPC consensus letter for Wang Ping\u2019s full professor denial
\n14. 2012 FPC consensus letter for Wang Ping\u2019s full professor promotion<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an open letter from Chinese \/ American poet Wang Ping. For more information on the case, see this article. Dear Friends, this statement serves the following purposes: 1. Clarify my litigation with Macalester to prevent misunderstandings. 2. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,949,951,368,952,950],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-qB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1673,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1673","url_meta":{"origin":1649,"position":0},"title":"Petition to Macalester College in Support of Wang Ping","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Following last week's post on Wang Ping's grievance against Macalester College, here is a petition saying, simply: For more background and to sign the petition, click the image above. The beginning of the explanation reads: Wang Ping is an internationally renowned poet and professor at Macalester College in St. Paul,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2917,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2917","url_meta":{"origin":1649,"position":1},"title":"Wang Ping Reviewed in Rain Taxi","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"December 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Andreas Weiland in Rain Taxi reviews Wang Ping's Ten Thousand Waves (Wings Press). Here's an excerpt: The last lines of the poem tell us that she realizes the consequences of her formality when she is back in the States, looking at the \u201ctrophy\u201d acquired for nine yuan during her visit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":761,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=761","url_meta":{"origin":1649,"position":2},"title":"Fact-checking Translations","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A new book whose provocations seem to be helping it make the rounds is The Lifespan of a Fact, by John D\u2019Agata and Jim Fingal (click here for a critical NYTimes review), where D'Agata argues that facts are often irrelevant in the pursuit of art, and that \"nonfiction\" essentially means\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2012\/02\/21\/books\/review\/26mcdonald\/26mcdonald-articleLarge.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2012\/02\/21\/books\/review\/26mcdonald\/26mcdonald-articleLarge.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2012\/02\/21\/books\/review\/26mcdonald\/26mcdonald-articleLarge.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1376,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1376","url_meta":{"origin":1649,"position":3},"title":"Xi Chuan on Poetryeater","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The website Poetryeater has uploaded a Xi Chuan poem under the title of \u201cMisfortune A 000000.\u201d They don't credit the translator, but it looks like it's Wang Ping's translation with Alex Lemon published in the literary journal Grain in 2009. Here's how it begins: He never looks back, yet knows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":372,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=372","url_meta":{"origin":1649,"position":4},"title":"Chinese Names in Push Open the Window","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"When I first wrote about the Copper Canyon anthology Push Open the Window, I said, \"My only quibble with the book so far is that, while everything is printed with Chinese and English en face, for some reason the Chinese characters of none of the poets\u2019 names made it into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthologies"","block_context":{"text":"Anthologies","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2835,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2835","url_meta":{"origin":1649,"position":5},"title":"Chinese Poetry in Asian Cha","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The new issue of Asian Cha is here, along with Iris Fan's poem \"In Memory of Leung Ping-Kwan [\u6881\u79c9\u921e]\" no southern terra other than this one where once a painter dreamed of water rising from an ancient river flooding his farm And Hongkong poet Wong Leung Wo's\u00a0\u738b\u826f\u548c \"An Ode to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"2014-10-11_1635","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/2014-10-11_1635-1024x363.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/2014-10-11_1635-1024x363.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xichuanpoetry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/2014-10-11_1635-1024x363.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1651,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}