On 3/15/07, Payne, Annmarie Janet <annmarie.j.payne@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
As you know it
is hard to get anyone to speak on these issues on campus. However, I will
not send this to the Tennessean on behalf of the BSA executive board
because this would be irresponsible of me and and jepordize our abilities
to carry anything on campus if we publically blast Chancellor Gee and Vice
Chancellor Sheonfeld.
***Then ask someone else to do it.
***By the way, if Vanderbilt has withdrawn funding from a student group because it has offended Gordon Gee, that is a legal offense. Please give me the details of the group you say lost funding.
***I would also like to add: what good is it if the BSA has funding if the BSA will not perform a basic function of any organization, namely defend its members.
However, I am a student first and my grades are my NUMBER ONE CONCERN!!!
*** Glad to hear it. Every year at Vanderbilt I used to give a talk to the black students called "How to Get Straight A's in College." (I earned 29 A's and 3 A-'s at Harvard, graduating second in the class, so my advice works.) So this (that is, my not being at Vanderbilt to give this talk) is at least one concrete way in which you have personally been adversely affected by what occurred to me.
***But if you would like to invite me to give this talk for an honorarium I would be happy to come to Nashville.
*** I would also like to add that if you cannot be a student and BSA president, then I implore you to step down as BSA president. You are hurting the organization if you cannot focus on the job. There may be someone else willing to do it.
Please, I am begging you to not jepordize the strides we, the
African American, students have made on campus to better our status here.
*** What strides are these when a black professor can be routed at will by the Vanderbilt administration? This is not a rhetorical question. I am genuinely interested in the answer.
I just want
you to understand that I am doing what I can to make sure this is handled
properly.
*** What is your experience that you can be so certain you are aware of the proper way to handle matters such as these? This is also not a rhetorical question.
And I am blind carbon copying this email to my attorney just to make sure
that nothing is misunderstood and I have a witness to my statements to
you.
Sincerely,
Annmarie Payne
*** I fully understand you. Like your predecessors, you are afraid. There is nothing wrong with that: just admit it for what it is.
***Actually, there is something wrong with being afraid, because there is nothing to be afraid of. But to debate that is not my point now.
***If you will not ask other people if they will write the innocuous letter I suggest, please let me speak directly to the BSA via speaker phone. Your predecessor said she would arrange this last year and then never did.
***From my various conversations with you, you will recall that there were numerous instances where you did not understand me; so it appears as if I should be the one with the recorder to make sure I am not being misunderstood.
***Your statements, I have to say, are rude and disrespectful, whether you intend for them to be so or not. I hate to think that you are afraid of offending Gordon Gee, but have absolutely no concern about offending someone who sacrificed his career for your organization. This is something for you to ponder.