Short Take: Dean Too Woke

Odd things happen at CUNY law school. There was the protest to silence Josh Blackman because of his presentation on free speech. Now the dean of the law school, Mary Lu Bilek, has been “canceled.” Except this time, she canceled herself.

The dean of the CUNY School of Law has decided to cancel herself — saying she is retiring in atonement for referring to herself as a “slaveholder” during a faculty meeting.

It might be assumed no privileged white woman can be too woke, but apparently that’s not the case. During the faculty meeting to discuss an opening for an associate dean, Bilek sought to prove herself by calling herself a “slaveholder.” Presumably, it was not meant literally, though that’s not entirely clear.

Bilek said that when she dropped the “slaveholder” reference, she was taking the blame for a hiring proposal some colleagues thought would have a “disparate racial impact.”

“In 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,” Bilek wrote.

“I realized it was wrong the minute I heard myself say it and couldn’t believe the word had come out of my mouth.”

Landmines abound when discussing the issue of race on campus, but isn’t self-denigration and racial self-loathing the sort of thing all the cool people do?

Bilek went on to write that she apologized immediately at the meeting “and have since apologized without reservation to the faculty.”

“I am still shocked at what I said and have begun education and counseling to uncover and overcome my biases and further understand the history and consequences of systemic and institutional racism,” she wrote.

One “cringeworthy” word, uttered with the intent to prove her racism, followed by an apology, followed by “education and counseling,” because she obviously was in desperate need of counseling if she can get an appointment with Kendi or DiAngelo, might seem to be sufficient contrition. But nope.

She wrote that she ultimately decided to retire “because the work it would take to repair the trust necessary to lead the Law School is a burden I don’t want to impose on the faculty or the community.”

Bilek has been with CUNY law school since 1985. One might suspect that she has long since established as much “trust” as possible with the students and prawfs based on her 35 years of service there, and that would be good enough to overcome her misguided utterance of one word while trying desperately to find her way through the minefield of CUNY WokeLaw.

But the dean, obviously, has determined that the one word, the word she spoke in solidarity as an anti-racist, the word she uttered to prove her virtue by proving her horrifying lack of virtue as should any white woman, was enough to end her career.

And if this was sufficient reason for the dean to “cancel” herself, there isn’t much hope for anyone less in touch with her white fragility.

11 thoughts on “Short Take: Dean Too Woke

  1. rojas

    Seems a damn shame to maintain all that brickwork when similar salvation can be found in shotgun framed chapels of Appalachia.

    “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature…… they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

  2. B. McLeod

    There is no rationality to this stuff. It was a big mistake for her to try to discuss it at all.

  3. Anonymous Coward

    It seems kind of stupid to even think of oneself as a slave holder much less use the word in conversation. I can’t imagine the woke mental gymnastics that led to this performative foolishness but I fervently hope that it burns itself out quickly.

  4. Scarlet Pimpernel

    Hmmmmmm, according to the NY State controllers website, with 36 years of service and a final year salary of around $275k, her retirement is around $194k/year.

    If that is what “atonement” looks like, then I too would “atone” for any silly idea that was asked of me.

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