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ALLEGATIONS OF RACISM IN THE CLASSROOM, VISITED AND REVISITED
THE CONGRESS OF BLACK WRITERS was a genuine boon to the emerging Black Power scene in Montreal. Among other things, it strengthened the resolve of a group of Caribbean students at Sir George to fight racial discrimination on campus. In time, the students ire came to focus on one particular individual: a biology instructor named Perry Anderson. Professor Anderson, the students alleged, had a history of discriminating against them and giving them lower marks than their work warranted. Yet for many of his accusers, there was no avoiding Professor Anderson. He taught a mandatory course in biology, a popular major among aspiring medical doctors, a category in which many Caribbean students fell.2
After long commiserating among themselves, the students finally worked up the will to formally bring a complaint of racial discrimination against Professor Anderson with the university administration. Two Asian students had also accused Anderson of racial discrimination, but declined to join the formal complaint brought by their Caribbean counterparts. The complaint added up to a syllabus of wrongs, not just about racial discrimination but also about Andersons competence and his attention to duty. The professors lectures, the students charged, were poorly prepared and disorganized. Anderson, the complaint went on, was often absent from class, substituting movies for lectures, and took an inordinately long time to return exams. The labs were improperly organized, the students further alleged, while the professors answers to questions were so poor as to be embarrassing. The complaint asserted, too, that Anderson had no scheduled office hours, and failed to keep the appointments he made. At the heart of the students' case against Professor Anderson, however, was the charge of racial discrimination. As exhibit A, the complaint stated that no black student had ever received a grade higher than "C" in Anderson's classes.3 In sum, Anderson's accusers portrayed him as a maladroit instructor who was prejudiced against black students as a group and who, accordingly, consistently marked them down.
The dean of science, Samuel Madras, was assigned to look into the students' complaint. The investigation, Dean Madras explained, "consisted of talks" with Anderson and his supervisor, the chair of the biology department. The talks did not include Anderson's student accusers, who...