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Toni Morrison novels get at root cause of health care disparities, professor writes
LAWRENCE – While some have sought to remove Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel “The Bluest Eye” from high school curricula, a University of Kansas researcher argues in a new scholarly article that part of its value is the way it informs modern readers about longstanding gendered and racial health disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic.
KU Debate reaches Final Four at National Debate Tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Debate team of juniors Mickey McMahon, Leawood, and Michael Scott, Glenview, Illinois, advanced to the Final Four at the 76th National Debate Tournament hosted at James Madison University April 1-5. The duo is the 19th KU team to advance to the semifinal round of the National Debate Tournament. This is the third consecutive year that KU has placed a team in the Final Four and the fifth time in the past six seasons.
KU Law to honor 3 alumni with top award
LAWRENCE — Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the school’s Distinguished Alumni Award this year. Recipients L. Camille Hébert, James May and Irma Stephens Russell – all professors of law — will be honored at a private event April 9 in Lawrence.
Two language departments in the College to merge
LAWRENCE – This July, the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Languages & Literatures and the Department of German Studies at the University of Kansas will merge and become the Department of Slavic, German & Eurasian Studies. The merged department in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will host a joint Bachelor of Arts degree in Slavic, German & Eurasian studies with concentrations in Russian, German, Polish, South Slavic, and Russian, East European & Eurasian studies. The new department will host a public open house from 3 to 5 p.m. April 6 to share about courses and curriculum.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
Toni Morrison novels get at root cause of health care disparities, professor writes
LAWRENCE – While some people have sought to remove Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel “The Bluest Eye” from high school curricula, a University of Kansas researcher argues that part of its value is the way it informs modern readers about longstanding gendered and racial health disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an article titled “Getting to the Root of US Healthcare Injustices through Morrison’s Root Workers,” published Jan. 20 in the journal Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Giselle Anatol explores the depictions of African American folk healers who appear in several Morrison novels, including “Bluest Eye,” “Sula” and “Song of Solomon.” The professor of English analyzes the clues Morrison gives as to why these women – who use natural, herbal remedies — are sought out in lieu of formally trained doctors. Those reasons include but are not limited to the inability to afford treatment within the medical establishment, a lack of physical proximity to treatment centers and a desire to avoid racial and gender discrimination in a system dominated by white caregivers and men actors, which still pertain to the experiences of many African Americans today.
“Morrison’s fiction features powerful root-working women, midwives and healers who not only help contemporary audiences see health care disparities as clearly linked to race, complexion, gender, socioeconomic status and age,” Anatol wrote, “but also envision practices connected to African traditions as valuable, viable acts of resistance and sustenance.”
Anatol said episodes of sexual abuse, murder and other cruelties in Morrison’s fiction – which many objectors cite — are indeed disturbing but typically complicated by the perpetrator’s own traumatic backstory.
“What Morrison does beautifully in her writing is to break down notions of strict binaries like good and evil, or the idea of folk healing as backward when compared to the progress associated with institutionalized medicine. Her work allows us to talk about the different strategies that people can employ for wellness … to take care of their physical health, their mental and psychological health — even their financial health — when they don’t have access to the same systems and forms of health care that other people do.”
Morrison wrote that a scene in “The Bluest Eye” can help explain many African Americans’ reluctance to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
“It’s not just that we have these Black characters who are uneducated or living in poverty and can’t afford to access medical care,” Anatol said, “or are mistrustful because they’re wary of a history of Black exploitation by the medical establishment and scientific communities. A lot of conversations about that have come up in news stories; African Americans not trusting medical interventions because of past cases like the Tuskegee syphilis experiments or what used to be called Mississippi appendectomies — the sterilization of Black women without their consent.
“In ‘The Bluest Eye’ we have Pauline, an African American woman who didn’t go to the doctor for the delivery of her first child, but she decides that she is going to go to the hospital for her second child’s birth, and she’s treated as less than the white women – less than human in a variety of ways. … Morrison is addressing stereotypes of Black people that are rooted in slavery — that people of African descent are closer to animals than human beings; that Black women are suited for field labor and can endure more pain and lack the feminine fragility of white women or their emotional sensitivity.
“But what is key in this scene is that the history of racism has a present-day effect. It results in the absence of equitable care for Pauline, even though she has access to a hospital, to a licensed practitioner, to an integrated maternity ward. An experience like that would make one hesitant to put oneself in a position to go through that humiliation again.”
“The pandemic has revealed that cases like these have been going on for many years and are still prevalent,” Anatol said. “Numerous research studies have shown that physicians are less likely to prescribe pain meds to Black patients — and then prescribe them in lower doses — than to white patients. And even in the 2020s, Black women are three to five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women — even Black women who are college-educated. Reading Morrison can give people a better sense of the nuances of these situations — the multiple layers. There is not just one way that these disparities manifest themselves in our society. They might decrease over a period of time and then rise back up again.”
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Contact: Scott Harris, KU Debate, 785-864-9878, [email protected], @KansasDebate
KU Debate reaches Final Four at National Debate Tournament
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Debate team of juniors Mickey McMahon, Leawood, and Michael Scott, Glenview, Illinois, advanced to the Final Four at the 76th National Debate Tournament hosted at James Madison University April 1-5. The duo is the 19th KU team to advance to the semifinal round of the National Debate Tournament. This is the third consecutive year that KU has placed a team in the Final Four and the fifth time in the past six seasons.
McMahon and Scott compiled a 7-1 record over three days of competition and qualified for the elimination rounds as the No. 4 seed. They began the tournament with three straight wins over California State University at Fullerton, the University of Wyoming and Michigan State University before losing to the second-ranked team in the country from Northwestern University. They then defeated Emory University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley to qualify for the single-elimination rounds. In the first elimination round they defeated Michigan State University. In the Sweet 16 they beat a team from the University of Michigan. In the Elite Eight they advanced over Harvard University. In the Final Four they lost to the top-ranked team in the country from the University of Michigan.
Dartmouth and Michigan met for the championship for the second consecutive year, and Dartmouth won on a 3-2 split decision, earning its second straight national championship.
The KU pair also received individual speaker awards as Scott was the 15th speaker and McMahon the 17th.
Two other KU teams had excellent runs at the NDT as both qualified for the single-elimination rounds with 5-3 records in the preliminary rounds. This was the second consecutive year that KU qualified three teams for the elimination rounds and only the third time in the history of the program that has happened. The University of Michigan and Emory University were the only other schools to qualify three teams for the elimination rounds.
The team of Graham Revare, sophomore from Shawnee, and Ryan Snow, senior from Highlands Ranch, Colorado, won debates against Weber State University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Central Oklahoma, the University of Michiga, and Trinity University. In the single-elimination rounds they lost to the second-seeded team from Emory University.
The team of Jimin Park, junior from Topeka, and Jet Semrick, junior from Prairie Village, won debates over Boston College, George Mason University, Western Washington University, Liberty University and the University of Michigan. In the single-elimination rounds they lost to a team from the University of Michigan.
“We could not be prouder of the performance of our teams,” said Brett Bricker, associate director of KU Debate. “It was a tremendous national championship performance to cap off a great season.”
The assistant coaches who worked with the program this year were Benton Bajorek, Allie Chase, Nathan Davis, Edward Gidley, Jyleesa Hampton, Julia Henry, Derek Hilligoss, Jesse Smith, Alaina Walberg and Azja Butler, who was the top speaker and a semifinalist at last year’s NDT.
“I want to thank the assistant coaches and the entire squad for the hard work that led to the success of our teams competing at the NDT,” said Scott Harris, the David Pittaway Director of KU Debate. “It was a product of the effort of all of the people in the program.”
After the semifinals loss the KU squad gathered to watch the men’s basketball team stage its historic comeback, winning its sixth overall national championship — four in the NCAA Tournament and two in the Helms national championships. KU debate has also won six national championships at the NDT, with its last championship coming in 2018.
“Congratulations to Coach Self, the coaching staff, and the players on an incredible performance,” Harris said. “This was a great day to be a Jayhawk.”
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Contact: Sydney Halas, School of Law, 785-864-2338, [email protected], @kulawschool
KU Law to honor 3 alumni with top award
LAWRENCE — Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the law school’s highest alumni honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, this year. The award celebrates graduates for their professional achievements, contributions to the legal field and service to their communities and the university.
Three professors of law, L. Camille Hébert, James May and Irma Stephens Russell, will receive the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award at a private dinner April 9 in Lawrence.
L. Camille Hébert, L’82, has distinguished herself through her dedication to educating the next generation of lawyers. Hébert currently serves as the Carter C. Kissell Professor of Law at Ohio State University College of Law and has served as the associate dean for academic affairs and as director of the Center for Law, Policy, and Social Science. Hébert has been teaching at Ohio State since 1988. She is also an affiliated faculty member with Ohio State’s department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Hébert has written or co-written four books and published law review articles on issues including sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, sexual orientation and gender identity, and labor law. Before starting her lifetime career in higher education, Hébert practiced labor and employment law, representing management for five years with Spencer, Fane, Britt, and Browne in Kansas City. Hébert clerked for the Hon. James Logan of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals after graduation. During law school, she served as editor-in-chief of the Kansas Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
James May, L’89, is a law professor and environmental and human rights lawyer, writing more than 20 books, 50 book chapters and 60 law review articles, and advocating in the public interest matters before international, regional, federal and state tribunals, all pro bono. He serves on the American Bar Association’s Environmental Justice Task Force and as a special representative for the International Council of Environmental Law. He is the founder or co-founder of a half-dozen nonprofit organizations, including Dignity Rights International and the Mid-Atlantic and Eastern Environmental Law Centers. May is the distinguished professor of law, founder of the Global Environmental Rights Institute and co-founder of the Dignity Law Institute at Widener University Delaware Law School. May’s law career began at Black & Veatch in Kansas City, where he counseled power companies on licensing requirements, including Wolf Creek Power Station, the last nuclear power plant to be licensed in the country. This work was close to his roots as he also holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from KU and worked as a national defense engineer at Allied-Signal in Kansas City prior to beginning his career in law. He is an inducted member of Phi Kappa Phi and the American College of Environmental Lawyers, and currently a visiting professor at the Haub School of Law at Pace University in New York, from which he holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.)
Irma Stephens Russell, L’80, joined the KU Law faculty this spring to serve as a distinguished visiting professor. Russell is teaching two environmental law courses: the environmental law survey course and the public lands and natural resources law seminar course. Russell’s permanent position is just across the Kansas border at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she serves as the Edward A. Smith/Missouri Endowed Chair in Law, the Constitution, and Society. Russell has taught at several other universities, including the University of Montana School of Law, where she served as dean. Russell practiced law for approximately a decade before beginning her career in higher education. In practice, she represented potentially responsible parties, government entities, lenders and others on issues arising under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Russell clerked for the Hon. James Logan of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals after earning her undergraduate, master’s and law degrees from KU.
View previous Distinguished Alumni Award recipients on the KU Law website.
The law school will also recognize James Woods Green Medallion honorees. Named after the school’s first dean, the medallion recognizes the school’s major financial supporters. This year’s honorees include:
1. Barbara & Ernest Adelman, L’65
2. William Bevan III, L’70
3. Doug Bonney, L’85 & Rochelle Harris
4. The David S. & Debbi C. Elkouri Foundation
5. Robert Fish and Jeanne Spencer Fish, L’45
6. John Hayes III, L’91 & Donna Hayes
7. Barbara McCloud, L’98
8. Lisa Meekins, L’05
9. N. Royce Nelson L’72 & Linda Krell Nelson
10. Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP
11. Benjamin Walker, L’05.
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Contact: Heather Anderson, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, 785-864-3667, [email protected], @KUCollege
Two language departments in the College to merge
LAWRENCE – This July, the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Languages & Literatures and the Department of German Studies at the University of Kansas will merge and become the Department of Slavic, German & Eurasian Studies. The merged department in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will host a joint Bachelor of Arts degree in Slavic, German & Eurasian studies with concentrations in Russian, German, Polish, South Slavic, and Russian, East European & Eurasian studies. The new department will host an open house from 3 to 5 p.m. April 6 in the main hallway of level 2 at Wescoe Hall. The public is invited to attend and learn more about the courses and curriculum.
The merged department will preserve the existing curricula and research profiles in German studies and Slavic & Eurasian studies. The restructuring of these two departments also will mirror a number of departments across peer institutions that carry similar expertise.
“This merger will maintain the outstanding work we see from faculty in each of the programs and ensures the continuation of opportunities that will be available to students in both fields,” said John Colombo, interim dean of the College.
Colleagues in the merged department will continue in disciplinary research excellence as well as in building intellectual synergies around joint research interests in second language acquisition, 20th- and 21st-century diaspora studies and film, 19th-century literary studies, comparative literature, Central Europe and European studies, World War I and World War II studies and memory, as well as other areas.
“I am excited to work with our German studies colleagues in a new way,” said Ani Kokobobo, associate professor and chair, Slavic and Eurasian languages & literatures. “Many of us have intellectual overlaps in our research and teaching, and we have already been working collaboratively on graduate student advising. As a scholar, I am personally excited about comparative and world literature research possibilities.”
Students currently earning the German Studies major or minor will be able to finish those degrees.
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