Law Schools

Details Emerge Of Chain Of Events Culminating In CUNY Law Dean 'Slaveholder' Remark

There's still a lot that could've been handled better.

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When we first reported on Mary Lu Bilek’s impending departure at CUNY Law, we included the line “It’s still not entirely clear from that account what happened.” Bilek’s email describing the events that spurred her decision to step down in the near future referred to “a misguided effort to draw an analogy to a model of reparations in order to place blame on myself, as Dean, for racial inequities at our school, I thoughtlessly referred to myself as the ‘slaveholder’ who should be held responsible.” While that’s certainly a stark detail, it was also one that seemed to hinge a lot on context that was absent from the account.

A letter written to the CUNY Law community on behalf of the student government endeavors to fill in those blanks, stating that “The Dean has made a statement that we feel distorts what happened.”

1. A white junior faculty member, Dean Allie Robbins, was asked to accept an appointment as Academic Dean. This appointment was unanimously supported by the Personnel & Budget Committee (P&B) in April of 2020.
2. After the initial appointment vote, Dean Bilek brought up the idea to the P&B committee of granting Dean Robbins early tenure.
3. Offering early tenure to Dean Robbins would disregard the standing of more senior tenure-track faculty, particularly senior BIPOC faculty. This effort also ignored that untenured faculty who previously held deanship positions had not received early tenure. Additionally, BIPOC faculty had been told that early tenure was never possible absent something like a MacArthur Genius Grant. Therefore, such an exception to early tenureship was only being explored on behalf of a white person.
4. No one believes the idea of early tenure originated with Dean Robbins

Maybe this is a function of the proliferation of assistant deans, but the title sounds like one that should go to a tenured professor. On the other hand, instead of promoting someone new, just pull someone from the existing tenured ranks.

5. Due in large part to concerns raised by P&B members Profs. Kassem and Whitlow, the administration’s attempt to grant early tenure to a white faculty member ahead of more senior BIPOC faculty did not proceed.
6. During the October P&B meeting, which now included Profs. Kassem, Huertas-Noble, Lamdan, and Whitlow, Dean Bilek expressed disappointment about not having been able to offer early tenure. After receiving pushback from these committee members regarding the racism at play, Dean Bilek said, “I am the slaveholder here, not Allie,” and “If anyone should have to pay reparations, it should be me.” When asked to repeat herself, she did so verbatim. This direct quote was provided by Professor Kassem during the faculty meeting on 3/19/2021.

The student government letter characterizes this as “The Dean likening herself to a slaveholder, invoking imagery of the greater CUNY community and particularly the Black members thereof to be those she envisions herself enslaving.” It reads more like she was pegging herself, and not the junior candidate, as the person responsible for any racism issues at play in the tenure push by pulling out the nuclear example of white responsibility for racism in a manner that belittled the importance of the issue as opposed to actually envisioning herself as a slaveholder. But in any event, these are the kinds of differing interpretations that everyone benefits from discussing openly… which didn’t happen.

These comments were relayed to tenured and tenure-track faculty in December. This prompted a group of faculty to ask that she “resign or decline any positions or roles that put forward a perception that you are an ‘anti-racist dean.'” Bilek opted for the former. UPDATE: I misread this… apparently the statement was meant to mean “resign or decline” the stuff that “put forward a perception that you are an ‘anti-racist dean,'” as opposed to “Resign, full stop, or decline those positions.” In any event, she resigned outright which I guess was one way to fulfill that request but not the only way.

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Since then, the letter asserts that Bilek made efforts to keep the reason behind her decision to step down secret:

13. Dean Bilek has repeatedly refused to make such information public. She asserted various reasons, including that the matter involved personnel decisions, to try and prevent her statements from leaving the P&B committee. After faculty brought this information out of P&B, Dean Bilek stated that there was an inquiry at CUNY Central and she had been directed not to make statements. Further, there were fears that releasing these details might affect the school’s ability to attract dean candidates and prospective students, retain current students, fundraise, and harm the school generally. Several of these concerns were echoed by some faculty members during the faculty meeting on 3/19/2021 prior to factual disclosure.
14. At the Race, Privilege, and Diversity Committee meeting on 3/18/21 (notes available here), student government representatives were told by faculty that Dean Bilek was retiring following a “racist course of action and statements,” and that faculty were not at liberty to share more.

By keeping this affair under wraps, it robbed the school of an opportunity to reckon with what happened. As the letter puts it, “CUNY Law will never be able to deal with the anti-Black racism in its institutional fabric if it is unwilling to admit that it is there.” In the end, it’s this lack of transparency that caused the most damage. The ill-conceived attempt to jump the tenure line didn’t happen and the remarks in the meeting were terrible but could have been talked out one way or the other if everyone could have been allowed to know and then been open and honest about them in real-time. Instead, everything was allowed to fester in secrecy for months — in a way that even the ultimately correct decision to walk away fails to fix.

Yesterday’s article gave Bilek credit for deciding to step aside, contrasting that response with the law professors across the country who refuse to apologize or even stop racist activity. And that’s still true. But as that article also noted, we can approve of a comparatively better response without letting it replace the real goal of never having these situations arise in the first place.

Earlier: CUNY Law School Dean Leaving Over ‘Slaveholder’ Remark

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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