Racism charge haunts SAS dept.

History professors have been told not to discuss a racial discrimination charge filed in 1997. While everyone in Penn's History Department is talking about a black graduate student's 1997 racial discrimination charges against a white professor, they certainly aren't talking to the press. Originally an American Civilization grad student, third-year grad student Kali Gross transferred into the History Department in 1996 after the University terminated the AmCiv program. Because of department policy, she was forced to take History 700 -- a course designed to teach first-year graduate students how to do primary source research -- despite having already taken a similar course in the AmCiv department. In June 1997, Gross, who took History 700 with then-first-year Professor Margaret Jacob, filed racial discrimination charges against Jacob after she got a "B+" in the class. According to one History professor, members of the department are under strict orders not to discuss any aspects of the case, although several professors commented to The Chronicle of Higher Education for a story that ran two weeks ago. Gross is on a two-year sabbatical in California and has an unlisted phone number. Additionally, she did not respond to several e-mails over the last week. Jacob also declined to comment. "[Gross] came and told me that she thought Jacob had given her a grade based not on the work she'd done but that she had been biased," History Professor and then-History Graduate Chairperson Lee Cassanelli said in a recent interview with the Chronicle. After reviewing the comments appearing on Gross' papers and comparing them with those given to other students in the class, Cassanelli concluded that the charges were groundless, though he said that some of Jacob's remarks may have been overly aggressive, the Chronicle reported. Consequently, Gross brought her charges to History Department Chairperson Lynn Lees and School of Arts and Sciences Graduate Dean Walter Licht, but failed to obtain a decision against Jacob. In August 1997, the situation escalated as Gross accused the History Department of racism and filed a complaint with University Ombudswoman Vicki Mahaffey, an English professor. After eight months, a resolution was brought to the executive committee of the graduate group and accepted unanimously. The resolution stripped Jacob of all blame and allowed for both the grade and class to be removed from Gross' record. While faculty members are legally forbidden from discussing any of the circumstances surrounding a student's grade, administrators said they were pleased with the decision. "We were satisfied with what was done -- it did not hurt the professor, and I think it was appropriate given what happened in the course," Mahaffey told the Chronicle. Whether or not faculty agreed with the decision is difficult to say. Numerous faculty members declined to discuss the issue, citing an effective departmental gag rule. Professors also would not say who had ordered the gag rule. For those wondering why so much fuss was made over a "B+," for a grad student the grade can mean the difference between getting a great job or not getting any job. "It's the belief of many that anything less than an 'A' in grad school is equivalent to a 'fail,' " said one history grad student. That the controversy arose over the History 700 seminar also comes as no surprise to several History grad students, since the seminar is widely regarded as a difficult class with tough, even caustic teachers, they said. "Seven hundred is almost like a boot camp for history students," the student said. As to why the department chose to erase, rather than uphold Jacob's grade, numerous theories exist. In the Chronicle article, several anonymous History professors offered explanations ranging from Jacob's recent lack of seniority in the department to resentment over the belief that Jacob was hired to keep her partner, prominent History Professor Lynn Hunt, from leaving Penn. Numerous department officials denied the claim that Jacob was hired solely to keep Hunt on staff. "The implication appearing in the article [in the Chronicle] that Peg Jacob was hired solely to keep Lynn Hunt at Penn is not accurate," SAS Dean Samuel Preston said, adding that Jacob was recruited "because she is a distinguished scholar and teacher." As of now, it appears that both Jacob and Hunt will probably leave Penn to teach at the University of California in Los Angeles in the near future. Although UCLA officially denies making an offer to the two professors, last spring Jacob e-mailed her colleagues saying that she planned to teach at UCLA this coming January, citing Penn's History Department's handling of the discrimination charges as the reason, according to the Chronicle. Hunt is similarly expected to leave Penn for UCLA, although no official announcements have been made and she said her possible departure "has nothing to do with" Jacob's case.