Hughes Suffren's Email To Me

Photo courtesy of Claremont University Consortium web page

I sent this email to Hughes Suffren last night:

Dear Mr. Suffren,

I was wondering if you might be able to provide some kind of statement regarding Ms. Rachael Ballard's videos. Do you agree with her that OBSA's Kwanzaa event is only for black people?

Thank you,

He has yet to respond to that email, but he did send me this email just a few minutes ago.

Hughes Suffren	Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 3:59 PM
To: CJohnson11@cmc.edu
Mr. Johnson, I’m not sure where you retrieved the photo of Rachael for your story, but it was not provided “courtesy of OBSA.” Please remove this. Thank you, Hughes Suffren, Dean/Director Office of Black Student Affairs Claremont University Consortium

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Charles Johnson	Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 4:52 PM
To: Hughes Suffren
The photo is from the OBSA website. [Quoted text hidden] -- Charles Johnson Claremont McKenna Economics-Government Claremontconservative.com

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Hughes Suffren	Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:02 PM
To: cjohnson11@students.claremontmckenna.edu
To say that the photo was provided courtesy of OBSA is dishonest. From: Charles Johnson <cjohnson11@students.claremontmckenna.edu> To: Hughes Suffren Sent: Tue Dec 15 16:52:49 2009 Subject: Re: Rachael's Photo [Quoted text hidden]

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Charles Johnson	Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:07 PM
To: Hughes Suffren
I disagree, but I will say that the photo is provided courtesy of the OBSA website. I think, with all due respect, that you have much bigger fish to fry with respect to Ms. Ballard's comments, rather than how her photo was obtained. Instead of repudiating them, you've tried to create a false moral equivalence between frats, which we do not have, and OBSA. [Quoted text hidden]

Could it be that Suffren shares Ms. Ballard's views? I wrote about Mr. Suffren and the obligatory racial sensitivity training when I was editor of The Claremont Independent:

Claremont McKenna's Associate Dean of Students Jennifer Jimenez Maraña convened the new RAs for an obligatory, hour-long diversity training this past March in the lounge of Claremont Hall.

Most controversial were the remarks of Hughes Suffren, Associate Dean of Students and head of the Office of Black Student Affairs. According to Dean Suffren, the years since the 1960s have been framed by a constant struggle by its black students to achieve three goals at the Claremont Colleges: "more faces that look like theirs"; "more faculty that look like them" and a "curriculum that spoke to them." [Editor's note: Like Ms. Ballard's media studies courses for one?]

. . .

And so, even forty years after violence and intimidation were excused as a response to a "white culture" on campus, racialist ideology is still justified by the existence of a perceived exclusive majority culture. Returning to the RA meeting in Claremont Hall, Dean Suffren reportedly described CMC students as "culturally insensitive" and asserted that every single year there is a racial incident on Claremont McKenna's campus.

Suffren made much similiar arguments during the discussion about Ilan Wurman's CI piece on racial clubs and in the letter I have put up that he sent out earlier that suggested there was some kind of "white culture" on the campuses. Thankfully he affirmed that OBSA events are open to students, without regard to race.