A student-filed formal complaint against a teaching assistant will not go before the Ethnic Studies academic appeals committee until after the end of the semester.
Music major William Brooke filed a formal complaint against his teaching assistant Amadou Niang in mid-April for what Brooke said were violations of university policy.
During a March 27 class session, Niang asked how many students were from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After the LDS students raised their hands, he asked them to describe the hierarchy of the church. He then wanted them to name every black church official they could. When the students came up with only four name, Niang said the LDS Church is an example of institutional racism.
Brooke said Niang quickly ended any in-class discussion about the comment, which infuriated some students who wanted the opportunity to refute his claims.
Brooke’s complaint also points out that asking students to identify their ethnicity, disability, sexuality or religion is against U policy.
The professor for the African-American Experience class is Karen Johnson. She was not in the classroom during the March 27 incident due to health reasons. U administrators said that Niang was not allowed to teach the course by himself for the rest of the semester.
Brooke, who says he is representing a group of upset students, didn’t believe that was punishment enough. He filed a formal complaint with the Ethnic Studies Program with the hope that Niang would be removed from the class for the rest of the semester, however, the Ethnic Studies Program cannot act on the complaint without key members of its appeals committee, according to Lisa Flores, the program’s director.
The committee, comprised of two Ethnic Studies faculty, two students and one outside faculty member, has three weeks to hear any complaint.
Flores said the committee could not act faster on Brooke’s complaint because the outside faculty member is out of town until at least May 6. According to U policy, at least one student member and the outside faculty member must be present at every meeting.
At the initial meeting, the committee will review the contents of the complaint. They can either dismiss it or set up a hearing at that time.
Brooke expected the committee to act faster.
“It will be two months after the incident before they discuss it, that is pretty ridiculous,” Brooke said.
He still wants Niang punished for singling out the LDS students and not giving them a chance to respond to the comments. Brooke said he did not file the complaint because the comments were not in favor of the LDS Church.
Niang remains as the teaching assistant for the African-American Experience class.
After the incident, Niang apologized for upsetting students, though he stood by his comments about institutional racism.
“This is a very unfortunate incident. I didn’t mean to offend anybody,” Niang said in a previous interview.