Vito Perrone is out of a job. The incoming Massachusetts school superintendent was ready to start as head of Easthampton Schools when scandal struck. No, it was not embezzlement or some stalking charge as principal of Easthampton High School where he previously served with distinction for eight years. Perrone made the unpardonable error of sending an email to Chairperson Cynthia Kwiecinski and Suzanne Colby, executive assistant to the committee, that referred to them as “ladies.” What is most interesting about the outrage of Kwiecinski and Colby at being sent such a greeting is that it is considered a “microaggression,” but in this case had a decidedly macro impact.
Perrone was offered the position as the head of Easthampton Schools on March 23. He was willing to take the job despite it being $14,000 less than his existing job. However, Perrone wrote to Kwiecinski and Colby to seek more sick days and possibly a bump in living adjustment costs or compensation. He began the note with the greeting of “Ladies,” which Kwiecinski and Colby reportedly found deeply offensive.
Perrone recounted how Kwiecinski told him that using “ladies” as a greeting is hostile and derogatory and constitutes a microaggression. She reportedly added that “the fact that he didn’t know that as an educator was a problem.” He was then informed that the job offer had been withdrawn following a vote.
Perrone was devastated and said that “This job was not about the money for me. I honestly felt like I was coming home to Easthampton. I coached football here. I was principal here when we built the school. I have such wonderful memories … I was excited to come back.”
What is most striking is the macro impact of the microaggression in this case. We have previously discussed the growing list of microaggressive language deemed inappropriate at colleges and universities. From a free speech perspective, the concern is that this category of prescribed language is often ill-defined and subjective, including seating decisions or eye-contact. Mount Holyoke College’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion added new terms to the list with a guide on social media listing “fatphobic language” that will now be deemed microaggressive.
It is now common for universities to list offensive terms to be avoided by faculty and students, as we have previously discussed at schools like Michigan, James Madison, and Berkeley. Brandeis issued a list of “oppressive” words that include such expressions as “killing two birds with one stone” and “beating a dead horse.” However, the school did not issue a trigger warning because “trigger warning” is now on the list as . . . well . . . triggering.
Recently, the University of North Texas lost a critical motion in a free speech case brought by Mathematics Professor Nathaniel Hiers after his contract was not renewed due to his criticism of the school’s microaggression policies.
I have had debates over my opposition to how microaggression policies have been used to limit free speech and target dissenting voices on campuses. Advocates for these policies often struggle to clearly define them. They were originally deemed as a category of speech that fell below outright discriminatory or hateful language. However, the language was still considered “harmful” or not helpful. In the past, I was told that microaggression policies are not free speech concerns because they are not treated as seriously as outright discriminatory language.
It is now apparently enough to lose a job in a single greeting. I have no problem with Kwiecinski and Colby objecting that they do not want to be called “ladies.” However, there are generations (including my own) where this greeting was accepted as a standard expression of respect. There is no evidence that Perrone meant to insult or belittle these two women. Indeed, he was actively negotiating with them on employment compensation.
If microaggressions are going macro, the distinction between the categories of discriminatory language and microaggressive language is largely illusory for teachers and students. That would mean that a much wider array of speech could be subject to sanctions.
“the fact that he didn’t know that as an educator was a problem.”
In other words: How dare he not anticipate the emotional response of a neurotic.
Three words: “Sick and Demented!”
A little further research showed that the job had been offered orally after a 4-3 vote by the board in his favor. This was on several news services. After the e-mail the board went into executive session and did not even give him a chance to say anything to the board before rescinding the offer. The board was going to say nothing about the decision and rescinding of the offer until the Superintendent candidate made it public. I would suspect that there were at least 1 or 2 people who were against his hiring and raised such a ruckus that were able to flip another board vote and rescind the offer. It appears protests were launched thereafter, publicly.
Hopefully he had not quit his present job. Apparently one individual wrote to the local paper stating that one of the aforementioned board members “was no lady” anyway.
Excellent. Ladies are women, but women are not necessarily ladies. Has to do with behavior and, as the good professor wrote the other day, civility is now considered elitist or whatever -ist of the day is in vogue.
“but women are not necessarily ladies.”
In a better age, being a “lady” was considered an achievement and an honorable title. See for example Barbara Stanwyck.
That it is now considered a slur shows how crass the culture has become. I cannot think of a single prominent actress today who has earned the title: “Lady.”
Ho’es.
Those two are no ladies. Harpies, witches, bi*ches maybe, but not ladies.
Sue them. Sue them all. It’s the only thing they will understand.
Once a year, a national conference of people who identify as female should gather and agree upon a comprehensive list of words that will be considered offensive for the following 12 months. Then, we get one of these AI companies to insert chips in everyone’s brain that will filter out the offensive words before they can be spoken. Problem solved.
The World Economic Forum is all over that. They want chips in people’s brains for other reasons, and this epidemic of men calling women “ladies,” which has now killed thousands, has become a convenient vehicle for them. Flatten the curve!
Saluda, canI get the same treatment? After all I don’t want my feelings to be hurt.
Had he been addressing transgender individuals who have penises, he would be in trouble for NOT calling them ladies.
Kevin – good one!
Back in the 1980s some women at work objected to ladies, even though it’s the female equivalent of gentlemen, a common greeting. A male colleague and I searched around for an acceptable alternative and settled on “chicks.”
We figured they’d be okay with that as long as we also started the letter with “Dear.”
Good point. I’m always amused with the reference to alleged murderers or other criminals as “the gentleman.” Oh my, but the English language is comical sometimes when put in the mouths of people with nothing better to worry about than offending someone. Xi will soon teach us what things are important in this world with survival being at the top of the list.
Excellent! Better than “broad.”
Sorry, but I refuse to believe that two highly educated ladies were so offended to be called ladies that they forced a vote to rescind his contract on that alone. There must be more going on below the surface. There just has to be.
For perspective, I despise EVERYTHING about the Left. The bureaucratic welfare state has been a catastrophic disaster on every level, The shift to identity politics in which they foment hatred for Western culture, traditional values, and white people is every bit as destructive as the welfare state. I believe the Left is willfully ushering in moral decay and rot, racial and ethnic division, and economic decline with the unrealistic expectation they can perfect humanity in whatever is resurrected. It’s madness.
But as wrong and detestable as the Left is about literally everything, I can’t accept that two women engineered a vote to rescind an offer of employment simply because a man graciously and respectfully referred to them as ladies.
Just another tool in the kit for sociopaths.
Apparently they ran out of actual issues to complain about.
RE:”Sorry, but I refuse to believe…” One must suppose that there are always those who must step in it, even though it looks like it and smells like it.
Misery loves company.
Little does he know what a favor they did for him.” These daze a man’s got tah know where the limitations lie and not tah step in the dogshit.”
Not all of Easthampton, MA is a nutjob. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaZMBXZTrQ0
Hopefully, the committee will see the error of their ways.
Interesting that the education community is continuously revealed as the least intelligent, most irrational, and a completely illogical group of people in government, from top to bottom. The Department of Education, what a 40+ year record of government leadership, who could have ever seen it as a disastrous boondoggle, besides maybe racists?
Disgusting and petty people in and from this field. These people seem to have peaked emotionally and intellectually at around 6th grade.
I’d say 6th grade is overestimating them. More like 6-year-olds who took A.A. Milne’s poem seriously – “But now I am six, I’m as clever as clever, So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.”
Please do not insult 6-year olds.
Only those who remain psychoemotionally and behavioraly 6 long after the calendar should apprise them it’s no longer appropriate.
RE: :”Interesting that the education community…” Those who can….do. Those who can’t…..teach. Those who can’t teach…….teach teachers.” [Yes…I hold an MSEd and….as soon as I saw the handwriting on the chalkboard.{‘blackboard’ became prohibido in the ’60’s} I was outa there!!
I heard a theory from someone who explained it like this: The more over-developed the intellect becomes, the left hemisphere, the quicker it goes to communism. There’s something about their brain that doesn’t have connection to the right hemishphere; the overdeveloped left hemisphere brain is able to cut itself off from the right. Made sense to me when explained this way.
In the metric system, a microaggression is one millionth of an aggression. A full aggression might not be enough legally to constitute an assault. But a microaggression somehow is enough to make some people lose their minds.
Holy smoke. What a fortunate man! Before he even showed up for work, he found out what morons he would be dealing with–probably for years. In the nick of time, he was saved from a horrible future of having to deal with womyn like that.
Robert, you have committed not just one, but TWO microaggressions in your opening line.
Holy? Are you kidding me? Please don’t force YOUR religion on me. Harrumph!
And smokes? You are denigrating Nicotine-Connected Americans with your casual slur, sir!
Deep and heartfelt apologies (plural!) will be heard, but are not sufficient.
You “may” have some “good” qualities. But your repeated and egregious violations cannot be ignored any longer!
Signed,
A Fellow Serial Wokeness Abuser😇
It’s interesting that so much nonsense revolves around language, the co-opting of language by the left, primarily, to subtly change reality by changing word meanings. In this case, ironically, the women are right. Whatever else they are, they’re not ladies. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple says a true lady can never be shocked or surprised. At the same time, why not write back and say, Please don’t address us that way. Here’s how we want to be addressed in future. End of story. Isn’t their response an aggression too? Personally, I often address my female students that way primarily because the English language lacks the plural “you.” Same reason “guys” or “you guys” is so often used with the inevitable triggering of people who lack real problems to worry about and fixate on linguistic nothingburgers. It is said that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword. The word sword has the same letters as “words.” One day, one of these XY chromosome folks will accidentally misgender someone or commit some other made up crime worthy of Alvin Bragg and his merry band of crime inventers and they will find themselves experiencing that which they cause others to experience. Which, while we’re defining things, is one definition of karma.
It’s interesting that so much nonsense revolves around language, the co-opting of language by the left, primarily, to subtly change reality by changing word meanings.
That should be a quote etched in stone.
The lefts policies and agendas cannot be supported by reason and logic. Shutting down debate is the first line of defense. Next comes the lefts atttempt to define the language and definitions of words. Often just creating new made up words. ie, micro aggression.
These ladies with a little bit of power, flex their power by using a term with no definition.
Indeed, the left, and these ladies are forced to create an alternative truth. An alternative reality.
Do you need clearer examples of why public education is turning out such abysmal test results? Ladies like this in charge of hiring leadership that focuses on wokeism, instead of turning out graduates ready to excel in society.
O Brave New World
That has such people in’t
Could somebody explain to me what is “wrong” with ladies?
There is nothing wrong with “ladies,” or with ladies. The problem is now women don’t want it pointed out that they refuse to be ladies.
The Left and the Dems that support them are clearly suffering from a Mao-ist/Marxist mental health crisis. These two ladies have been suckered into a state of constant mental delusion as to where power should be used. Their “absolute power” over this man, corrupted them absolutely. From this lady to these two mental cases laides – get a life. Stop hurting others because of your insecurities and ineptitudes.
Yes, they are bonkers.
That’s dangerous, they should be removed from their positions.
Maybe he should have referred to them as “b***hes” Why, oh why, do I even read the news anymore.
dang you beat me to it