As Purdue University Northwest awaits the tally of a no-confidence vote against Purdue Northwest Chancellor Thomas Keon, its parent school is holding firm against any repercussions toward him.
PNW’s tenured, tenure-track and clinical faculty started voting Monday night on whether they support Keon in the wake of a racist remark he made during the school’s commencement morning session Dec. 10 and continued to vote until late Tuesday night, PNW Faculty Chair Thomas Roach said Tuesday. Roach and the Faculty Executive Committee gave Keon until Monday to resign — which Keon didn’t do — before taking the vote.
Advertisement
Keon has apologized, saying in a Dec. 14 statement on the campus website that his remarks during the ceremony were “offensive and insensitive,” but that has done little to placate the campus community.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 60% of those eligible to vote had, and the majority have voted “No Confidence,” Roach said.
Advertisement
The vote, however, appears to have left the school’s governing body in West Lafayette unmoved.
“Our Board of Trustees, which oversees the entire Purdue system, including our regional campuses of Purdue Fort Wayne and Purdue Northwest, when made aware of the insensitive and unacceptable remarks made by Chancellor Keon at a Dec. 10 commencement ceremony, asked for an immediate apology,” Purdue University spokesman Tim Doty told the Post-Tribune in an email Tuesday. “Chancellor Keon has provided that apology and his plan to ensure this does not happen again, which you have already seen. Trustees have accepted the apology.”
Boilermakers also “must hold themselves to a high standard that begins with civility and respect for all,” a point the university and its leaders “have stated many times over,” Doty said, and they’ll continue “to uphold those values and expect members of our community to do so as well.”
The Post-Tribune then asked Doty to clarify if Purdue University was going to ignore PNW faculty’s wishes and what message that sends to them and its current and potential students. Doty has yet to respond.
PNW spokesman Kale Wilk also didn’t respond Tuesday to requests for comment.
PNW Faculty members were dismayed to hear West Lafayette doesn’t seem to want to deal with something that’s exceptionally painful to its Asian American and Pacific Islander cohort. Pam Saylor, a social worker and clinical assistant professor in the school’s social work program, said Tuesday she could face repercussions for speaking out against the university’s response instead of Keon facing repercussions for starting it. But the situation has become bigger than the campus itself, she said Tuesday.
“I’m quite vulnerable here — as a rule, I avoid conflict at all costs, but my cousin pointed out that I’ve always stood up for injustice — so when racist mocking where AAPI families, students, friends and faculty are gathered to celebrate our accomplishments shows up, I’ve got to say what it is: It’s racist behavior,” Saylor said. “I teach social work, and when I come back to campus in January, I need to be that person I want my students to be.”
And that will include using the incident as a teaching moment in her “Diversity and Social Justice” class this spring on the Hammond campus, she said.
Advertisement
“Students have been reaching out to me, and I think it’s going to be a great conversation, but it’s also such a burden to the faculty to have this thrown on us,” Saylor said. “This has become a global outrage, and he’s the face of our campus? It’s appalling, because it doesn’t reflect (the faculty’s) values at all.”
Roach, meanwhile, was defiant toward the university’s response.
“If Keon ignores our vote, we will demand that he resign, and if he still doesn’t, we will demand that the Board of Trustees fire him,” Roach said.
Keon’s comment was an off-the-cuff response after commencement keynote speaker Jim Dedelow finished his speech, where he talked about a made-up language he created to entertain his new granddaughter and at one point used it to calm the baby from the stage when she squawked during his speech.
As Dedelow sat down, Keon came back to the podium and said, “Well, all I can say is” and proceeded to speak in a made-up language that sounded as if he were trying to speak Chinese. He then said, “That’s sort of my Asian version of his …” trailing off before going back on-script.
Since then Keon’s apology, at least two petitions urging his resignation are circulating. One petition, created by “A Concerned PNW student,” has captured 6,212 signatures and counting Tuesday and asked the campus “to look at what he said and deeply recognize what effect this will have on the diverse communities at Purdue Northwest.” A second, posted and co-signed Dec. 15 by a group of Asian academics across the country, has received more than 1,100 signatures and said Keon’s apology for the remark doesn’t address their community’s concerns.
Advertisement
Several major networks — including CNN and NBC — as well as publications such as British newspaper The Guardian, covered the incident over the weekend.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
