Whitney Dow; African student claims bias in failing grade
An ugly battle has erupted within the Hunter College media department between a race-focused White male adjunct-professor and a West African female college student after he failed her in a final class denying her graduation.
Adjunct professor, Whitney Dow, 51, forced the New York City funded college to yank media studies major Mayenie Jalloh's diploma from her hands the day she was supposed to participate in her classes' graduation ceremony. Dow's justification for giving Jalloh, 30, an F for his class, Documentary Production 2, is that she supposedly missed five classes, one class over the maximum limit.
Jalloh, whose Hunter College transcripts indicate that, other than two C grades, she has received six A-, six A, seven B+, six B and two B- grades in every other class at Hunter, even getting on the Dean's list twice. Jalloh would have been put on the Dean's list her final semester at Hunter as well, if not for Dow's failing grade.
The Black Star News has learned that Jalloh has been ill. Ms. Jalloh claims it was due to the stress and abuse she was enduring in Mr. Dow's class. Jalloh did in fact check in to MedCare walk in clinic on 1643 Westchester Ave and was treated by Dr. Alseny Blade. BSN has obtained a written by Dr. Blade confirming this. "Mayine Jalloh is under my medical care" and was "evaluated at the office on the following dates 3/24/15, 4/21/15, 5/5/15, 5/12/15. Please excuse her absence."
Jalloh told BSN that she did tell Dow that she was sick and could confirm she was at MedCare on the dates in question. Dow apparently remained silent and walked away.
For the fifth and decisive class, Jalloh claims that she did show up on time for the one class in question, but was drummed out by Dow in a "cruel and abusive" manner and left the class in tears.
BSN did speak with several students who participated in the Dow's class with Jalloh. Some refused to speak about what they saw transpire between Dow and Jalloh. Other students said they were unaware of any rift between them. But others did detect something was wrong with Dow's behavior.
"It was like a soap opera all semester," one Hunter student told BSN, "the guy obviously disliked her. When she would walk into class, his eyes would bulge with anger. He would watch her every step intensely, then just stare at her with this angry expression on his face. When she would look up at him, he would wait a few seconds, just make sure she saw his face. Then he'd look away. It was pretty creepy stuff."
According to Jalloh and her fellow students in class, the problems for Jalloh began early in the semester, when the adjunct professor announced in his four-hour, one-break class that if students had to use the bathroom they would have to raise their hands in front of everyone and verbally ask him if they could leave for that reason. He also said when class begun, he would lock the doors.
In one class Jalloh raised her hand and said she had to go the bathroom. Her request inadvertently sparked the entire class to break out in laughter, not at Jalloh but at Dow; and that, according to Jalloh and her fellow students, is when Dow turned on her.
BSN did speak with Dow on Friday, August 28th about his unusual requests and his overall behavior in his class. He did not deny them. "I don't go to the bathroom in the middle of class. I go before. I don't get a drink or take a smoke break," Dow said.
Dow told BSN he "never" heard Jalloh was sick, nor did it matter. "You miss five classes, you fail the class, " Dow said.
BSN asked about the incident in the class when Dow marked Jalloh absent when she ran out crying. "She is not a kid, she is an adult," Dow shot back defensively.
After defending his decision to fail Jalloh, Dow bluntly said it is he who is in fact the victim of racial abuse from Jalloh. To prove his point, Dow claimed to be reading a section of an e-mail message that Jalloh wrote him in an attempt to get him to change her grade.
"Whitney, you are a racist. You always were a racist and you look down at me because I am from East Africa," Dow said, purporting to read what Jalloh wrote to him.
BSN did obtain that e-mail message and nowhere does the quote Dow purportedly read from exist. In fact, Jalloh is not even from "East Africa," but West Africa.
Dow, who also is a documentary film maker, whose works are all about race, explained his latest "Whiteness Project," a web based social media program designed to demonstrate "how white people process race."
Dow's twitter hashtag for the site is #Whitney (aka American of #CaucasianAncestry)
Dow then went on to angrily describe Jalloh's class behavior in ways that parallels the racially coded language he claims to rail about. "Every time I tried to talk to her, she was incredibly aggressive, incredibly abusive. Attacking me," Dow said, adding that his communications with Jalloh felt "like a stick up."
BSN did uncover that neither Dow nor any other professor at Hunter College had ever complained about Jalloh's alleged behavior in class.
When asked again about the fight Jalloh claims he provoked, Dow said, "If you want to say I'm a dick, I probably am a dick. A lot of people think I'm a dick."
When asked about the fairness of failing a student based on leaving one class during a fight he had allegedly sparked Dow said, "I'm a flawed individual....this was the best I could do. She should absolutely appeal the grade. It should be her duty to get me kicked out of Hunter."
Dow added, "Look, I give a shit about what I do. I certainly give a shit about Mayenie. She is from East Africa. She has had incredible journey."
The alleged race spat between Dow and Jalloh also appears to have ensnared Hunter College media department chairman James Roman, who will spearhead the appeals board Jalloh will have to face to have her grade changed.
It appears Roman has secretly sided with Dow even before the appeals process officially had begun. In an e-mail message exchange between Roman and Dow, that BSN has obtained, Roman may have violated Jalloh's student rights to a fair hearing that requires he remain impartial until both Dow and Jalloh make there case before the board.
"Hi Whitney. Your response and explanation appear to be very sound based upon the requirements articulated in the syllabus. All the best," Roman wrote Dow on August 26.
"It is astonishing. These two White men violate every rule in the handbook to deny me the diploma I have earned. Even conspiring behind my back in violation of the college rules to manufacture an outcome against me. Then they have the audacity to say I am racist towards them," Jalloh said.
"At least back home in West Africa, after a beating or an attack by a gang of youth, the beating eventually ends," she added. "But this is much worse. It is psychological torture and it is unending."
BSN did attempt several times to speak with Roman, Hunter College president Jennifer Raab and Hunter College legal flack Laura Herzog. All three refused BSN's request for comment.
