Former Dean of African-American Affairs, M. Rick Turner, as usual, got a free pass from the University of Virginia, which has closed the investigation into his agreement to testify for the U.S. Attorney's office after he acknowledged his role in a drug case. Turner retires with all hands at the University publicly lauding his tenure and the high graduation rate of Afro-American University students. There are glowing references to his service to the community.
I would like to offer a somewhat different perspective. I matriculated at the University in 1976. I became a member of and active with the Black Student Alliance, participating in a sit-in in the University President's office and various protest marches.
I graduated from the University in 1981 with a major in Religious Studies and have remained in Charlottesville. During the mid-eighties, I was a journalist here, often covering University matters for WINA radio. I then obtained a registered nurse license and have worked in a number of settings, including local school districts, teaching LPNs, and the University Health Sciences Center. I have continued to observe and read about my alma mater. I currently have a 13 year-old son who has attended Jackson-Via and Walker Schools.
M. Rick Turner is neither a scholar nor a gentleman. His syllabus and coursework for SOC 410 is a disgrace, requiring three books and essentially asking students to parrot his own views. In June, he shared the podium with three other speakers at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education, all of whom were notable academically and in positions of serious responsibility. I include the University of Virginia's own William B. Harvey, Ph.D, who has a record with some bones and meat in it. Turner's CV is noticeably bereft of any true scholarship but puffed up with self aggrandizing listings of accomplishments.
The trail of enmity, bitterness and discord he left in the Charlottesville School System is something that it will take our school community a while to recover from. But that process began as soon as the Scottie Griffin matter was resolved and Rick Turner was no longer a fixture at meetings. When the "hot story" left, so did Turner. Rebuilding trust between parents will continue the way it always has, with moms and dads working quietly at PTO fundraisers and as school volunteers for the mutual good of their children. If you want to see actual work done by African American professionals for our children of all colors, look no further than the many fine teachers, guidance counselors, school nurses, custodians, coaches, school cafeteria workers, and administrators and administrative assistants working for all our children in the Charlottesville system. In particular I would mention Valeta Paige, past principal of Jackson-Via and now in the central office. Turner, unfortunately, whose children are grown, was one of the most ill-mannered, hateful people I have ever seen at Charlottesville school board meetings. It is a shame he wasn't just asked to leave some of the meetings for rudeness and racist remarks. The meetings would have been shorter and far more civil.
I hate to think how much money the University is going to waste buying Turner off with his retirement package. The more things change, the more they stay the same. My alma mater is like an errant child who will never take responsibility for its own problems. For thirty years I have watched administrators close their eyes, cross their fingers, and count on the lack of focus of the public and local news media to shirk responsibility for messes made in house. I don't hold out much hope of Turner growing up. I will continue to hope that my alma mater will. Maybe William Harvey and Sylvia Terry, relieved of babysitting Turner, will actually be able to accomplish some of this.
My hope for Turner is that he live long and prosper, but hopefully he will do so in his old haunts in Connecticut and California. There were African-American carpetbaggers during Reconstruction, and there were white civil rights workers who died in the sixties. Turner's world view is too narrow and polemical to acknowledge either of those facts in any meaningful way. He will continue his life long pattern (even illuminated in the Albemarle Magazine puff piece profile of him) of leaving his mess for others to clean up. May he only come back to Virginia to testify for the U.S. attorney's office in Roanoke.
Karen S. Ramirez graduated from the School of Arts & Sciences in 1976. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
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