Hate mail stuns Doane professor

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By MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star

CRETE — It was a Monday.

After coming home from work at Doane College, Marilyn Johnson-Farr stepped out to grab the mail.

Flipping through the envelopes in her Lincoln living room, the education professor stopped at one with no return address.

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Doane students have been putting up anti-hate signs on campus, including this one near the office of Professor Marilyn Johnson-Farr in the Chab Weyers Education Building. (Robert Becker)

Doane students have been putting up anti-hate signs on campus, including this one near the office of Professor Marilyn Johnson-Farr in the Chab Weyers Education Building. (Robert Becker)

Must be an invitation, she thought.

“Dr. Johnson-Farr Far Away,” it began. “If you feel so unwelcome at Doane, get the f—- out. We are well on our way to a diverse community and do not need your whining token-ass around here anymore.”

The letter accused her of “undercutting” Doane President Jonathan Brand’s diversity plan and called the Rev. Karla Cooper, the campus chaplain and a close friend of Johnson-Farr’s, a “pity hire.”

It was signed, “The Faculty for a New Doane.”

Johnson-Farr’s head spun.

Her husband, standing in the dining room, saw the look on her face. She began to read the letter aloud.

Call the police, he said. That’s a hate crime.

That was last November.

Johnson-Farr — a 14-year veteran of Doane and the only black faculty member there — only recently has gone public with what happened that day, hoping word of mouth might help the Lincoln Police Department investigation that so far hasn’t tracked down the perpetrator.

She’s also hoping that public knowledge of the letter will serve as a gut-checking reminder to the Doane community about the work that remains to improve race relations, evidenced by a new campus climate survey that shows nearly one in five students is “resentful” of those from different racial or ethnic backgrounds and four-fifths think racial or ethnic conflicts exist.

“I know there are probably conversations saying, ‘Just let it go,’” Johnson-Farr said. “But there is sweetness in the struggle.

“How can you change something if people don’t know?”

Faculty have rallied in support of Johnson-Farr and Cooper, unanimously passing a resolution last month condemning the hate mail. So have students, who are asking the entire campus to dress in black on Friday in a show of opposition to hate crimes.

Fliers advertising the “blackout,” as well as posters reading, “Doane students do NOT think hate crimes are OK,” adorned Doane’s walls this week, outward signs the campus steadfastly has rejected the notion it’s an unfriendly place for minorities.

Indeed, much of the campus was affected by the hate mail, said Maureen Franklin, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“Faculty were deeply shocked and disturbed,” Franklin said. “Each one of us felt that pain.”

Before last fall, administrators say, they had no indication someone on campus might not have been on board with the private college’s ambitious plans to increase diversity, which included heavier out-of-state recruiting and expanded international programs.

The efforts have paid off, especially since Brand’s arrival in July 2005. The share of minority freshmen has jumped from 8.8 percent in 1997 to 13.1 percent this fall.

To be sure, a more unique mix of students is coming to Crete — not only in racial terms but also in terms of geography, religion and economics — but some students say tensions between races still exist.

Senior Kyle Coffie, an exercise science major from Kansas City, Kan., said he and his friends have been accused of being “too loud” in a residence-hall lobby when other students were just as loud in their own rooms.

“It’s just the little things sometimes,” Coffie said.

He said he wasn’t shocked when he heard Johnson-Farr had received hate mail.

“History repeats itself.”

Small acts of vandalism have occurred on campus recently, too, said Jessie Myles, Doane’s part-time diversity consultant.

Last year, a student made a poster promoting Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and someone wrote over the words: “Happy James Earl Ray Day.”

Posters from the campus’ gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered student alliance also have been defaced, Myles said. This spring, students organized a campus forum to discuss GLBT issues.

“I don’t want to say that (Doane) is not a welcoming institution,” Myles said. “It could be, as most institutions could be, more welcoming.”

Sophomore Brittany Jones, an international business major, admitted coming to Crete from Omaha was a culture shock.

Back home, her school boasted a good racial mix. Now she’s sometimes the only minority in her entire class.

Yet she calls Doane a friendly campus overall.

“People must have too much time on their hands,” Jones said of the writer or writers of the hate mail. “You can’t do anything about those people.”

In the climate survey, led by sociology Professor Danelle DeBoer, three-fifths of students said a multicultural course should be required at Doane.

Coffie thinks that’s a great idea.

“People can ask questions, get all their biased thoughts out there,” he said.

The campus also is considering hiring a chief diversity officer, someone whose full-time focus would be climate and diversity issues.

It will continue to bring a wide variety of speakers to campus and to send its students on eye-opening academic trips, such as the one this past winter that sent a group to Alabama and Tennessee to explore the roots of the civil rights movement.

And Brand has no intention of letting up on his push for a more diverse campus.

In fact, he said, if there’s any good to be drawn from the hate mail, perhaps it showed that the campus has begun to achieve its mission.

“It’s good that people are talking about this,” Brand said. “It may put people out of their comfort zone, but this is important.

“(The letter) is a sign that there’s work to be done. It’s also a sign, I’ll be honest, that we’re making progress.”

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.