Discriminating Decisions

Renee is a 38-year-old American working towards a post-graduate degree abroad. Renee spent the past 12 years of her career working in international education. Before leaving her post to pursue her own education, Renee served as Director of Study Abroad at a mid-sized public research university in the US. Renee describes a time, early on her career, when she was instructed by her superior to block a student with disabilities from study abroad. At the time, Renee reached out to others, including the human resource department at her university, but was met with silence. Ultimately, the student did not go abroad. Renee was deeply troubled by the experience and has dedicated her energies to advocating for student rights ever since.

In her work, Renee has always considered her greatest responsibility to be to her students, then to the department in which she works, and finally to her institution. She explains her duties in her role as Director of Study Abroad:

“As the Director, I was tasked with being the first point of contact for international emergencies dealing with students and faculty who studied abroad. If the problem needed to be escalated, I would then contact my Director of the Global programs office, who was in charge of Outgoing university students, incoming international students and English as a second language department.”

Renee is clear in her description of the hierarchy of her former workplace. She was sensitive to where she fit into the chain of command and who held decision making power.

Renee describes a particularly troubling scenario which occurred early on in her career:

“I used to [have] a supervisor years ago who disagreed with me on who should be allowed to study abroad. The student identified as having a disability and the director that I had, told me to pretend as if I was helping the student but in the end, he would tell the school abroad, not to admit the student and just pretend as if we were going through the process of getting them abroad.”

Renee was understandably quite taken aback by her supervisor’s egregious behavior. Unsure of how to address the situation, she decided to use personal connections and her knowledge of the school’s bureaucracy to seek support.

“I pretended to go along with the person's decision but I contacted other colleagues in my field for help who suggested that I contact the ombudsman on campus as well as Human Resources.”

Unfortunately, Renee did not receive the support she sought. Renee goes on to explain:

“After a month, nothing was done that I could see, no one contacted me for follow up questions…[My supervisor] made the process more difficult for the student and in the end, the student decided to not go abroad. I was so disappointed in the process that the supervisor and the school went through and was more disappointed for the student because they were not able to experience the amazing experience of studying abroad. After the school year, I quit but I did notify HR about why and that I was disappointed in their process on campus.”

Guided by her father’s teachings as a Christian Minister, Renee says that she turns towards the Bible in times of uncertainty. She is also still in close contact with the minister from her college campus—a relationship that has been sustained over the past 15 years. She feels that this incident was particularly transformative, explaining:

“I have thought about this during every subsequent job that I have had and I have tried to make sure that every avenue is addressed with students and I advocate for them even more if I feel that they were being unfairly treated. I have stood up for them, I have voiced my concerns more loudly to more people and I have tried my best to never have that happen again. I have built a model of just because something might be difficult, doesn't mean you don't try to have [it be] a success.”

Have you ever been in a situation when someone with more authority than yourself was allowed to mistreat others? How and why do institutions fail in these situations? What would have been an appropriate response from the university? How can organizations build in safeguards to prevent these types of scenarios from playing out?