An Open Letter to Cal Poly Administrators-Oct. 6, 2016

October 6, 2016

We, the Cal Poly community members below, are writing in response to the September 24 Tribune article about Roslyn M. Caldwell, a tenured professor at Cal Poly. From the article: Dr. Caldwell’s lawsuit asserts her employment rights have been violated. University Legal Counsel Theodora’s response—to publicly violate Dr. Caldwell’s privacy—illustrates Dr. Caldwell’s claims. 

Ms. Theodora’s action toward Dr. Caldwell is particularly perplexing in light of Dr. Caldwell being named in 2010 by the Tribune as a "Top 20 under 40" awardee and whose Bakari Mentoring Program for at-risk youth provides a valuable community service and was awarded the 2012 Cal Poly Presidential Service Learning Award. 

Dr. Caldwell refrained from publicly discussing her unresolved employment dispute with the press, resulting in the one-sided nature of Mr. Wilson’s article. We find it sad and unnecessary that Ms. Theodora impugned Dr. Caldwell’s character in the Tribune article. This response is consistent with efforts to protect the University’s public image, but is neither consistent with our policy prohibiting retaliation, nor the Mustang Way “to face all actions and decisions with perseverance, honor, and character.”

We are concerned about the violation of any employee’s rights. Further, we are concerned that Dr. Caldwell's treatment reflects a culture that lacks tolerance for differences. Such a culture may be why our Cal Poly community has recently lost so many employees from non-dominant groups. For example, we lost 40 percent of our black staff in the last 18 months, as described in the September 15, 2016 New Times article “Outin the Open: Cal Poly SLO confronts its diversity problem.”

When an institution’s culture is intolerant to differences, those in non-majority groups may naturally find the institution racist/sexist/discriminatory, even if the institution values diversity. Thus, in order to foster diversity, it is important for all community members to welcome diversity in all its forms, beginning with dissenting points of view—that is, freedom of speech. If the administration responds to criticism by shifting the investigation to the character of the complainant, not only does it stifle our civil liberty of free speech, it also eliminates the possibility of authentically looking into the claims, learning, and improving the campus climate. Thus the administration’s actions may be reducing the very diversity Cal Poly openly endorses.

We call upon Cal Poly's Administrators to cease targeting individuals for exercising their rights, to welcome criticism as a source of learning, to responsibly facilitate reconciliation where conflicts arise and to open an authentic dialogue to examine apparent patterns of discrimination on campus.

Peter Schwartz Associate Professor, Physics	Linda Vanasupa Professor, Engineering	Jere Ramsey Faculty Representative of the California Faculty Association
Kathryn G. Marshall Former Assistant Professor Economics	Gloria Velasquez Professor of Spanish Modern Languages and Literatures	Pegi Marshall-Admundsen Former Assistant Professor Theatre and Dance

Trevor Harding Professor, Engineering	Dianne DeTurris Professor, Engineering	Johanna Rubba Professor, Linguistics
Neal MacDougall Professor, Agribusiness	Manzar Foroohar Professor, History	Lynn Hamilton Professor, Agribusiness
Black Faculty and Staff Association California Polytechnic State Univ.	American Indian and Indigenous Faculty and Staff Association California Polytechnic State Univ.	Sema Alptekin Ervin Professor Emeritus, Engineering
Cal Poly Queer Student Union California Polytechnic State Univ Ann McDermott Director of STRIDE, Retired Associate Professor, Kinesiology, Retired	Teresa Allen Professor, Journalism	Students for Quality Education California Polytechnic State Univ