JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The person brought in to heal wounds at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts is now under attack herself.
It comes after the principal sent out a letter last week to “discuss cultural issues” in two separate groups, one for students of color and the other for white students. The backlash led to the canceling of the meeting and the reassignment of Principal Melanie Hammer.
Now the president of All Things Diverse, who was brought in to facilitate the meetings, says her business is getting 1-star reviews from people who don’t even know what she does.
Dr. Tammy Hodo founded her company All Things Diverse in 2019, the same year she was featured as a TedX Jacksonville speaker. Her talk describes race as a social, not biological construct.
She earned her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and she uses her education and her experience to dictate her decisions.
“The plan was to bring BIPOC students together to allow them to have a safe space to share their racialized experiences because, per my understanding, there are incidents where students are being called the N-word on campus and it’s still very much racialized and this was an attempt to allow them a space to allow them to share and connect their experiences,” said Dr. Hodo.
Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) in one group and white students expressing their experiences in a separate group is not segregation, she said.
“I’m not sure where that word came from in regards to this meeting,” Hodo said. “They’re called affinity groups.”
Hodo said the groups were a consensus among multiple people involved in the decision.
Affinity groups are often used in the workplace, defined as a collection of individuals who share similar interests and goals. They’ve been called essential for diversity and inclusion plans. Outside of work they could be a hobby club or fraternity.
“We just saw a couple of days ago the African-American students asking for a Black student union so it is apparent the students are really crying out for help and for a safe space and it’s being denied to them,” Hodo said.
Hodo said the plan for both groups was the same: ask the students about their experiences and ask what they would do to create a safe space and then bring them all together for a discussion.
“It’s not teenagers jobs to educate their peers about the toll of racism and so the concern is when you get the group all together initially without doing the affinity groups is that when a person of color or BIPOC shares their experience and then we may have someone say ‘Well that’s not what I meant or you interpreted it wrong or that’s not what happened’ and so it tends to get dismissed,” Hodo said.
Hodo said if she could go back, she would have made sure the messaging was different but still would have divided the groups up.
And while she stands by her decision, Hodo said she knows she can no longer be a part of a much-needed solution at the school.
Hodo joined us on The Morning Show on Wednesday to talk more about the situation: