Three senior managers at Wayne State University Press who were fired under murky circumstances last month now allege that they were terminated at least in part due to their race, according to discrimination charges they filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. All three are white.
The firings alarmed an academic-publishing community that has weathered previous efforts to slash presses’ budgets or shut them down.
The press’s authors and its editorial advisory board rallied for the university to rehire the managers, which Wayne State ultimately did. The university’s president expressed his commitment to the small press, a nearly 80-year-old operation respected for publishing books in Jewish and African-American studies as well as works by Michigan writers.
But the curiosity lingered: What was this bizarre controversy about?
One possible answer is contained in documents released this week by the lawyer representing the three fired managers: Annie Martin, editor in chief; Kristin M. Harpster, editorial, design, and production manager; and Emily Nowak, marketing and sales manager.
The three veteran managers allege that their former boss, the interim director Tara Reeser, who has since resigned, “was highly vocal throughout her tenure that white [job] candidates and interns should not be seriously considered,” according to a joint statement that three employees provided to The Chronicle via their lawyer, Jennifer McManus. (Reeser, according to McManus, is white.)
The three allege that they complained to a human-resources official about this “illegal approach.” That person recommended an investigation, the statement says, but the managers were moved to a different HR representative allegedly more sympathetic to Reeser and her boss, Jon E. Cawthorne, Wayne State’s library dean (who, according to McManus, is black). When the three managers reiterated their complaint, along with concerns that Cawthorne and Reeser were having what their statement asserts was an “unusual personal relationship,” they were allegedly fired without explanation.
The press then moved to fill at least two of their positions with black candidates, the EEOC complaints say.
“I believed that I was subjected to retaliation and discharged due to my race” in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Martin, Nowak, and Harpster each wrote in separate EEOC charges shared with The Chronicle by their lawyer.
“We are not opposed in any form or fashion to working for or hiring African Americans or any other people of color,” the three wrote in their joint statement. “In fact, the need for further diversity and inclusion in the nonprofit sector and publishing in general is a widely discussed issue within the university and the publishing industry. What we are opposed to is our terminations and the subsequent lack of answers from Wayne State University.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a federal agency that investigates allegations of discrimination in the workplace. The EEOC will look into the fired managers’ charges, McManus said. The university, according to the statement from the three managers, will be forced to “provide more information than we’ve been given to date.” An EEOC investigation can lead to a lawsuit.
A spokesman for Wayne State, Matt Lockwood, declined to comment on the charges. “We have been informed through counsel that they have filed complaints, and since complaints have been filed, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time,” Lockwood wrote in an email to The Chronicle.
Reeser and Cawthorne did not respond to emails seeking comment on Tuesday afternoon.
When the three managers were fired — an action carried out by Cawthorne, according to the EEOC complaint — the university released a statement saying, “We believe, moving forward, our future can be created through leadership and staff collectively committed and open to new ideas, deeper community connectivity.” The university’s president, M. Roy Wilson, later said that he had reviewed the firings and understood “the rationale behind them.” After rehiring the employees, the university put out another statement: “We are confident that the reinstatement of these critical employees will best serve the university press’s important mission, and we are resolved to refocus and re-energize the press team toward this purpose.”
In their statement to The Chronicle, Martin, Harpster, and Nowak stress that they don’t know with certainty why they were fired because the university still won’t say.
The uproar over the press’s personnel moves is the latest controversy in a tumultuous period for Wayne State University. Last year a conflict over whether to fire Wilson, the president, fractured the institution’s governing board.
