Racism still exists in the school system. Segregation by ethnicity has put ACCC on the defensive.
An anonymous email from someone who claims to be employed at the Atlantic City campus of Atlantic Cape Community College.
Cindy DeFalco, the Director of Human Resources at the college sent email to all college employees last week. It invites them to attend separate “focus group meetings” at Room B209 of the Mays Landing campus of the college later this week based on their race and/or ethnic group.
Employees “who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American or Pacific Islanders” are invited to attend the meeting at 3pm on Thursday, January 26.
Employees “who do not identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, or Pacific Islanders” are invited to attend a separate meeting at 4pm on Friday, January 27.
This anonymous source, claiming to be an ACCC employee, wrote that because the paid workday ends at 4:30 pm, the group that meets Thursday at 3pm will be paid for most of their attendance at the “focus group meeting”. However, the group that meets at 4pm on Friday will be paid only for thirty minutes of their time.
The purported email states that the purpose of these “focus group meetings” and other “division meetings” is to “discuss leveling equity as it relates to both instruction and student services”.
It states that Atlantic Cape Community College was recently designated a “Leader College” by the “Achieving the Dream (ATD) organization” of Silver Spring, Maryland. These “focus group meetings” will also discuss “the results of the Climate Survey, which staff/students completed on during December of 2021.
Update: January 25, 2023 at 1:30 P.M.: We confirmed that the above email is authentic. We also confirmed that Atlantic Cape Community College did in fact schedule two separate racially segregated meetings for its employees this Thursday and Friday. However, we were just informed that because the college received so much public criticism after we posted and shared this information, it is in now in the process of cancelling those meetings.
Atlantic Cape Community College (ACCC) is run by a 13 member Board of Trustees. Three of those members are chosen by Democratic Governor Phil Murphy. Seven are chosen by the Republican County Executive of Atlantic County, with the consent of a majority of Atlantic County’s nine Republican majority “commissioners” (formerly known as “freeholders”). The remaining trustees are appointed by the all Republican county commissioners of Cape May County. The current Board membership includes three Caucasian males, five Caucasian females, two Hispanic females, two African-American males, and one African-American female. The Trustees are active in education, healthcare, utilities, public service, law, banking, and community businesses.
The Board sets policy and has final authority over budgets and expenditures, and the President is responsible for internal administrative operations.
The Atlantic Cape Community College Board of Trustees June 28 appointed Monica Kyle as its newest trustee during its monthly meeting held on the Mays Landing campus.
Kyle is currently employed as Longport’s municipal clerk.
Outrageous. This article promotes racism. What was ACCC thinking?
Yellow journalism is alive and well here.
Racism is definitely alive and thriving. I believe as The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said Treat me based upon the way I ascot not the way I look.