To: Dr. Erik Johnston
Stand4Three
Discrimination has taken place in our Public Administration and Management class at Arizona State University. Please sign the petition that you support our project for change and our letter asking our professor to eliminate the explicit discrimination of three students in our class.
Why is this important?
We are starting this petition to prove that people support our initiative to end explicit discrimination in our class. We want Professor Johnston to follow the University Policy. It is also our goal to bring awareness to the discrimination that happens every day in the "real world" even though most employers have policies against it. Please support us! Even though this is an experiment, the discrimination is real and the grades WILL NOT be changed unless we do something to persuade our professor to change his mind. #FollowYourPolicy #Stand4Three #StudentsForEquality
Below is the letter we will be presenting to our Professor on October 20th and we need as many signatures as possible. Thank you for your support!
Dear Professor Johnston,
On September 3, 2015, you gave our Public Management and Administration class at Arizona State University an assignment in which you explicitly used discrimination against nearly half of the class. The assignment itself was not out of the ordinary, but the rules were as listed:
Special grading rules for this assignment
1. If you sit in the back row of the class, you must submit your assignment by noon on Friday (instead of Sunday at noon like the rest of the class).
2. You must show two forms of ID to turn in your assignment, white students must also bring a bill that shows your current address.
3. If you want credit for your assignment, then during class on Tuesday you must submit to having your cheek cells collected with a swab at the beginning of class.
4. Veterans (and active military personal) will receive an extra five points on the assignment. Please bring proof of service on Tuesday.
5. If you bring in sunglasses or a hat, you will receive an extra five points on the assignment.
6. The average score for male students will be adjusted to 77% of the average score for female students.
7. Students can receive 100% for this assignment if they donate $25 to support a course project later in the semester. The money is not due now, only the pledge for donating the money - if you choose this option, just write Module 3 - I promise to make a $25 donation to the course on your wiki. You do not need to do the assignment if you pledge to donate $25. For all students, this option will exempt you from all other rules except 2 and 3. For male students, the 77% reduction is not applied if you chose this option.
8. Samantha and Kevin, for helping to set up these rules, will receive a 100% base score and an extra 20% bonus for great performance.
While many of us understood the point you were trying to make in giving the rules based on statistics found in the “real world”, we believe legally and morally, these rules are unjust and must be changed. There are still three of our classmates who have received 77% for doing the same amount of work. Like many people who are discriminated against by employers, there is a policy against this kind of behavior, but it is still happening anyway. This is in violation of the University’s nondiscrimination policy:
“Arizona State University is committed to providing an environment free of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation for the entire university community, including all students, faculty members, staff employees, and guests. ASU expressly prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation by employees, students, contractors, or agents of the university based on any protected status: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and genetic information.
"Inappropriate conduct need not rise to the level of a violation of
federal or state law to constitute a violation of this policy and to warrant disciplinary action/sanctions. All individuals identified in the Applicability section of this policy are responsible for participating in and assisting with creating and maintaining an environment at ASU free from all forms of prohibited discrimination, including harassment and retaliation. All individuals identified in the Applicability section of this policy are required to cooperate with any investigation of allegations of violations of this policy. Providing false or misleading information or failure to cooperate may result in disciplinary action.”
According to recent studies and news, there is very slow process in equality in the work place due to an unconscious bias, which exists and is very difficult to change. Emily Peck of the Huffington Post explains:
“These days, sexism has (mostly) moved beyond the crass discrimination of the "Mad Men" years, shape-shifting into something we now call unconscious bias -- the things a lot of us believe about women without even realizing it. These attitudes are harder to combat, or even prove, but they show up again and again in the research. A lot of people, for example, believe on some level that women are less competent than men. There's also something called a "maternal bias," in which mothers who do well at their job are disliked -- and kept from advancing -- because they're believed to be terrible parents.
Women hold 45 percent of entry-level jobs at the companies surveyed, and their ranks thin out as you go higher. Only 27 percent of vice presidents at those companies are women, as are 23 percent of senior vice presidents and 17 percent of C-suite execs. These figures are a very slight improvement from 2012 (see the chart below). Very slight -- that’s where that 100-year estimate comes from. “ – “At This Rate, It’ll Take 100 Years to get Gender Equality at Work: Things are Getting Better…Very, Very Slowly” by Emily Peck
The difference in our class is that you are committing explicit discrimination and have challenged us as a class to do something about it. By bringing awareness and involving others, we hope you will reconsider the grades of the three classmates that are still receiving 77% for this assignment.
We the undersigned are prepared to take further action if all of our classmates are not...
Below is the letter we will be presenting to our Professor on October 20th and we need as many signatures as possible. Thank you for your support!
Dear Professor Johnston,
On September 3, 2015, you gave our Public Management and Administration class at Arizona State University an assignment in which you explicitly used discrimination against nearly half of the class. The assignment itself was not out of the ordinary, but the rules were as listed:
Special grading rules for this assignment
1. If you sit in the back row of the class, you must submit your assignment by noon on Friday (instead of Sunday at noon like the rest of the class).
2. You must show two forms of ID to turn in your assignment, white students must also bring a bill that shows your current address.
3. If you want credit for your assignment, then during class on Tuesday you must submit to having your cheek cells collected with a swab at the beginning of class.
4. Veterans (and active military personal) will receive an extra five points on the assignment. Please bring proof of service on Tuesday.
5. If you bring in sunglasses or a hat, you will receive an extra five points on the assignment.
6. The average score for male students will be adjusted to 77% of the average score for female students.
7. Students can receive 100% for this assignment if they donate $25 to support a course project later in the semester. The money is not due now, only the pledge for donating the money - if you choose this option, just write Module 3 - I promise to make a $25 donation to the course on your wiki. You do not need to do the assignment if you pledge to donate $25. For all students, this option will exempt you from all other rules except 2 and 3. For male students, the 77% reduction is not applied if you chose this option.
8. Samantha and Kevin, for helping to set up these rules, will receive a 100% base score and an extra 20% bonus for great performance.
While many of us understood the point you were trying to make in giving the rules based on statistics found in the “real world”, we believe legally and morally, these rules are unjust and must be changed. There are still three of our classmates who have received 77% for doing the same amount of work. Like many people who are discriminated against by employers, there is a policy against this kind of behavior, but it is still happening anyway. This is in violation of the University’s nondiscrimination policy:
“Arizona State University is committed to providing an environment free of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation for the entire university community, including all students, faculty members, staff employees, and guests. ASU expressly prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation by employees, students, contractors, or agents of the university based on any protected status: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and genetic information.
"Inappropriate conduct need not rise to the level of a violation of
federal or state law to constitute a violation of this policy and to warrant disciplinary action/sanctions. All individuals identified in the Applicability section of this policy are responsible for participating in and assisting with creating and maintaining an environment at ASU free from all forms of prohibited discrimination, including harassment and retaliation. All individuals identified in the Applicability section of this policy are required to cooperate with any investigation of allegations of violations of this policy. Providing false or misleading information or failure to cooperate may result in disciplinary action.”
According to recent studies and news, there is very slow process in equality in the work place due to an unconscious bias, which exists and is very difficult to change. Emily Peck of the Huffington Post explains:
“These days, sexism has (mostly) moved beyond the crass discrimination of the "Mad Men" years, shape-shifting into something we now call unconscious bias -- the things a lot of us believe about women without even realizing it. These attitudes are harder to combat, or even prove, but they show up again and again in the research. A lot of people, for example, believe on some level that women are less competent than men. There's also something called a "maternal bias," in which mothers who do well at their job are disliked -- and kept from advancing -- because they're believed to be terrible parents.
Women hold 45 percent of entry-level jobs at the companies surveyed, and their ranks thin out as you go higher. Only 27 percent of vice presidents at those companies are women, as are 23 percent of senior vice presidents and 17 percent of C-suite execs. These figures are a very slight improvement from 2012 (see the chart below). Very slight -- that’s where that 100-year estimate comes from. “ – “At This Rate, It’ll Take 100 Years to get Gender Equality at Work: Things are Getting Better…Very, Very Slowly” by Emily Peck
The difference in our class is that you are committing explicit discrimination and have challenged us as a class to do something about it. By bringing awareness and involving others, we hope you will reconsider the grades of the three classmates that are still receiving 77% for this assignment.
We the undersigned are prepared to take further action if all of our classmates are not...