Charges of race bias against Columbia University dean

Gary He

Columbia students and engineering school alumni have rallied to Dean Peniosky Pena-Mora's defense saying he has raised the engineering school's rankings and nearly doubled enrollment.

Columbia University is facing tough new questions about racial bias in its ranks.

On the eve of a meeting of the university's board of trustees, 20 city and state elected officials Thursday condemned a campaign of "attacks fueled by prejudice" against Feniosky Pe?a-Mora, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Columbia's highest-ranking Hispanic administrator.

Meanwhile, a highly regarded Hispanic biology professor has complained to Columbia President Lee Bollinger about the "ethnic bullying" and "unbridled racism" he has had to face from colleagues over the past ten years.

"While overt bias and slurs are common, subtler forms are more prevalent and damaging to an academic career," biology professor Julio Fern?ndez said in a letter, a copy of which the Daily News has obtained.

Faculty at the engineering school have been pressing Bollinger for months to oust Pe?a-Mora, even passing a "no confidence" vote in his leadership. The professors say he has an arbitrary management style and a fixation on fund-raising, and has mandated a precipitous expansion of the school's student body. There is is a "mismatch" between his "academic values" and their own, they say.

But Columbia students and engineering school alumni have rallied to the dean's defense. In just three years, they say, he has sharply lifted the engineering school's rankings, nearly doubled enrollment, built closer ties with the upper Manhattan community and recruited a much bigger and more diverse faculty.

What better ways are there to measure success, they ask.

"The old-time faculty were accustomed to business as usual," one engineering professor who supports Pe?a-Mora said. "Feni has shaken things up and demanded more accountability, and they resent it. Some even complain about his Spanish accent."

As for Bollinger, he has built a national reputation as a champion of affirmative action, but the top two black administrators he recruited departed suddenly during the past year.

Provost Claude Steele resigned in June and returned to a less prestigious post at Stanford. Shortly afterward, Michele Moody-Adams, dean of Columbia College, quit in protest over new policies that reduced her powers as dean.

Neither Steele nor Moody-Adams has claimed any racial hostility was involved. But in the sedate world of prestigious universities, such matters are rarely aired publicly.

The politicians, however, don't mince words. Their letter, authored by Ydanis Rodriguez, chairman of the City Council's committee on higher education, questions the "negative attitudes of some parts of the university towards people of color in leadership positions."

Given the enormous strides the engineering school has made under Pe?a-Mora, the letter says, "it is difficult not to see the attacks . . . as being related to his ethnicity."

"The shameful bullying of our engineering Dean Pe?a-Mora shows similitar characteristics" to the "gauntlet" other minority faculty have faced at Columbia, biology professor Fern?ndez said in his own letter to Bollinger.

Asked about all this, Columbia Provost John Coatsworth said:

"For the past year the university administration has been working closely with Dean Pena-Mora to support him in managing relations with his faculty and maintaining the forward progress of the engineering school."

Pe?a-Mora did not respond to a request for comment.

As for any setbacks in diversifying Columbia's staff, Coatsworth pointed to a recent proposal by Bollinger to earmark $30 million to recruit more women and minority scholars.

Fern?ndez says Bollinger did immediately contact him about his complaints.

"This administration is definitely dedicated to opening the university's doors," Fern?ndez said.

But change won't come easily, he said, because faculty in some of these departments was "structurally engineered 50 years ago" when racial biases "were commonly accepted."

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

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