sara ackerman emails: “an open letter to john sexton regarding professor caitlin zaloom”

8/3/2019 Sara Ackerman Emails: An Open Letter to John Sexton regarding Professor Caitlin Zaloom

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Sara Ackerman Emails: An Open Letter to John Sexton regardingProfessor Caitlin Zaloom

From: Sara E Ackerman Date: January 4, 2012 3:17:57 AM ESTTo: "Undergraduate students minoring, majoring or interested in SCA" Cc: "Undergraduate students minoring, majoring or interested in SCA" Subject:An Open Letter to John Sexton regarding Professor Caitlin ZaloomReply-To: Sara E Ackerman

Dear President Sexton,

Tonight, I showed up to Bobst Library at around 6:30 pm in a last-ditch effort toconvince you to deal with Professor Zaloom via forcing her to resign, or firing her, andinstead of coming to meet with me----I admit, I came unannounced, but you seem tohave made yourself scarce these last few months, and I deemed the situation urgent---Joanna from the Mental Health exchange called me.

I had told Sergeant Weitzman---the NYU officer who filled out my report, and the manwhom I asked to help to get me in touch with you---that if NYU tried to pull 'the mentalhealth card' again, I would go very public.

I would like to remind you that since Professor Zaloom alleged that I 'threatenedher safety' (all by emailing her, challenging her in class, and meeting with her duringoffice hours---how dangerous!!!) (note: I am 5'1 and 105 pounds), and she ordered aPNG to be put on my head a few weeks ago, (by the way, I have confirmedeyewitness reports from certain SCA administrators that people begged Zaloom not tofile the security report, as it was right before finals, and I had never threatened her butshe did it anyway), I was immediately cleared by a social worker at the NYUWellness Exchange after I was evaluated.I have the social worker's card, and sherecommended that I call her if NYU ever tries to pull that again.

Furthermore, I have no history of mental health issues, I have never been written up byan NYU security guard, I have no criminal record, I have an above average GPA,impressive extracurricular activities, an amazing resume with greatrecommendations/references, 3 post-graduation job offers, and I have sustainedwonderful relationships with many of my previous employers, and NYU professors, overthe years.

Alas, it seems you still are not taking me seriously.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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This is unfortunate.

Now, here is a very open, and very public letter to you, regarding what has beengoing on since October.

***To those of you who are new to the situation***:

----Feel free to disregard this email, or feel free to read on if you'd like to formulateyour own opinion about the unappealing underbelly of NYU bureaucracy.-----

****Luckily, Professor Caitlin Zaloom's misconduct/unethical behavior can be easilymapped out, and organized in list form...

Oh wait, one other thing:

For starters, here isAssociate Professor Caitlin Zaloom's ratemyprofessors page:

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=960217

Here is her husband, Professor Eric Klinenberg:

http://as.nyu.edu/object/ericklinenberg.html

~~~~~Now, here is that list, in no particular order~~~~~~:

1. Professor Caitlin Zaloom forced myself, and my classmates to doan ethnographic assignment on Occupy Wall Street a few months ago.

*No alternatives were offered, and we were instructed to interview only those peoplewho were participating in the OWS movement-- that means anyone, including criminals,drug addicts, mentally ill people, and of course, the few competent, mentally stablepeople that stationed themselves at Zuccotti Park

(**note: I did not meet any of the supposedly mentally sound, non-delusionalpeople at Zucotti Park. All of the interviews that I conducted are on video, andclearly show that each person I interviewed---and believe me, for my own safety, Itried to interview the most seemingly normal people there---was either mentallydisturbed or dangerous, scary or masked, or misogynistic and rude. I was cat-called at, gawked at, ogled, and called derogatory names.)

2. Before I actually went to OWS, I begged Professor Zaloom for an alternative,via her private office hours, in-class requests (by raising my hand, and makingthese requests in a polite, respectful, and productive way), and emails to her NYUemail account.
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=960217http://as.nyu.edu/object/ericklinenberg.htmlhttp://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=960217http://as.nyu.edu/object/ericklinenberg.html


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*I have all of these emails printed out. I have also forwarded them to every member ofmy family, friends that I trust, and other 'people'.

Professor Zaloom ignored many of my emails, or just told me that I have to do theassignment no matter what.

In one particularly notable email, Professor Zaloom told me that my personal stance onOWS was making 'conceptual progress in the class difficult to sustain.'

The way I interpret this statement is that Professor Zaloom asked me to stop expressingmy views in class--by the way,according to the American Constitution, and manyacademic policies, this is both my legal and academic right, but whatever, I guessthat doesn't matter when you're Caitlin Zaloom---because she realized I was right, orbecause she could not argue with me without recognizing that the assignment wascompletely illegitimate and a farce?

If you have any thoughts on this, please feel free to reach out! [removed by the editor]is

my mobile phone number and it will be on all night, as I will be waiting up until 9 am rollsaround...

3. Although it went against my core values, moral beliefs, and also made me feelunsafe, I ultimately did go to Occupy Wall Street with my class group-----two otheryoung girls, who are quite attractive and thin, and don't look particularlyphysically fit enough to take on a potential predator, rapist, paranoidschizophrenic, etc.----just to see if I was being as melodramatic as ProfessorZaloom made me feel I was.

***I won't go into detail here, but let me just tell you that if anything, I hadpreviously underestimated how awful Occupy Wall Street was, and I left the parkfeeling as though I had escaped an extremely dangerous---and even, life-threatening---situation.***

4. After sending various emails to Professor Zaloom's account, in which Iexpressed my discomfort with the assignment for legal, academic, ethical, moral,and safety reasons, and also mentioned these things in class, she finally agreedto meet with me one last time.

During this meeting, I offered to do an alternative in one of two ways:

a. I offered to do a different ethnography, on any topic Professor Zaloom finds to beparticularly compelling.

b. I offered to write an essay on Occupy Wall Street, but not an ethnography, as I hadno interest in going to, and was also genuinely afraid to go to, Occupy Wall Street.

Not only did Professor Zaloom refuse to give me an alternative, but she


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also threatened to give me an F on the assignment, should I choose not tocomplete it.

I pleaded with her, and Professor Zaloom continued to refuse.

I told her that if she absolutely could not offer an alternative, I would have no choice but

to take the situation to the next level of NYU administration.

Professor Zaloom told me I could meet with Mary-Louise Pratt, head of the SCAdepartment.

Please note that at this stage, Professor Zaloom thought it was more appropriate that Imeet with Professor Pratt than for her to provide me with an alternative herself.

At no point during the meeting did I threaten Professor Zaloom, or question herposition as a professor; I did not question her academic competence, nor herconvictions, though I had begun to question her ethical compass, and her ability

to gauge what is appropriate within an academic setting, and what is not.

The fact that Professor Zaloom thought it was appropriate to send studentsbetween the ages of 19-23 to a dangerous site is in and of itself, a horrifyingthought, but beyond this, when I protested, and both openly and privatelychallenged the assignment, in a completely rational way, as well as in a legallyand academically well-substantiated manner, Zaloom still refused to offer analternative, and then cavalierly sent me to Professor Pratt.

I'll skip the parts in which I met with Professor Pratt---who by the way, told me in herown words of course, that I am an intelligent, eloquent orator, with a strong grasp of theconcepts and theories taught in SCA----because despite the fact that she complimentedme, she too, sent me to someone else---Dean Richard Kalb.

I will also skip the parts about Dean Kalb, as this email is about Professor Zaloom.

Let's fast-forward to the assignment that was assigned after the ethnographicassignment, which, by the way, I still have not completed.

Dean Kalb, andRiley Gallaghercan answer why this is...

5. For the fourth assignment of the semester, we were required to conductsurveys, and Jen Heerwig, a graduate student in the sociology department, wasmeant to come and assist the class in learning how to gather quantitative data.

I would like to take this opportunity to note that I am an incredibly weak math student,and always have been, and as a result, Jen's guest lectures would have been veryhelpful for me, as I truly struggle with mathematical concepts---this is something that Iexpressed in class, and to Dean Kalb, and Riley Gallagher when I met with them.

Moving on---with regard to the timeline of Jen's lectures, I am using the syllabus that is


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on blackboard as a reference point, as I cannot be certain which days she came in, andhow those dates relate to the dates on which I met with Dean Kalb, Riley Gallagher,Professor Pratt, and even Zaloom herself.

According to the syllabus that is currently on blackboard...

Jen first came to speak to the class on November 16, 2011

(*note: this was a few weeks afterthe OWS assignment incident---at this point, I hadarranged with Dean Kalb to do an alternative assignment on the NYPD's responseto OWS. However, the alternative essay never did come to fruition---please keepreading to find out why.).

During Jen's first lecture, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, actively participated,learned a lot, and found Jen to be a very clear, and coherent educator who wasopen to questions, and enthusiastic about engaging with students, and meetingtheir academic needs. Jen answered many of my questions, and in my opinion,

helped to facilitate the class discussion on data collection for our imminentassignment.

Between Jen's first lecture, and second lecture, the situation with Professor Zaloomcontinued to become increasingly contentious.

I won't go into detail, again, because you can just direct all questions to DeanRichard Kalb, the man who has been consistently in-the-know about ProfessorZaloom's discrimination, unethical behavior, and legally questionable actions,and still did nothing substantial to help me, despite my requests, and pleas forassistance.

During Jen's 2nd and 3rd lectures, she mostly refused to call on me, even when Iwas the only student raising my hand.

Other times, I kept my hand up for about 75 seconds---a long time to keep one's armraised, by the way---and Jen still did not call on me, or she dismissed my questions,thoughts, and opinions.

Furthermore, when Jen did call on me, she was incredibly hostile, rude, andcondescending---she acted in a completely different manner than she had before,and she seemed to change her behavior only towards me.

**In my opinion, and from my perspective, Jen continued to treat everyone else in theclass in a respectful, kind, and open way.

When I pointed this out, in a completely rational, tame, and respectful way, bothZaloom and Jen dismissed my thoughts---cutting off my right to the firstamendment, yet again.


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Again, I won't go into details about it here, but these were the 2 lectures that I walkedout of---and right into Dean Kalb's office, where I begged him to do something for me.

In short, Dean Kalb told me that I could withdraw, take an incomplete, do thepaper, or just basically, essentially, give up, and give in.

Again, Riley Gallagher bore witness to all of this, and if I do have to bring NYU tocourt, she will be legally obligated to testify about Dean Kalb's response to my

pleas for help, and assistance.

Here, I will stop, because the rest of what happened involves myself, my family, DeanRichard Kalb, and many other people whom have been negatively impacted by thishurtful, contentious, illegal, academically unethical, and dangerous situation.

****President Sexton, you have already been alerted to all other details of thesituation via the emails I have been cc'ing you on over the last 3 months, and youhave yet to do anything for me.****

Now would be a good time to step in---unless of course, you still think that I am bluffingabout going to the press--remember, I know people--close family friends, in fact--whowork for:

1. WSJ2. The NY Observer3. NYT4. The Washington Post

I have already written the op-ed, and a draft has been approved by one of the reputablenewspapers listed above.

In this op-ed, I name you, Dean Richard Kalb, and Mary-Louise Pratt----all those

people who are meant to have some power to check on Professor Zaloom, and allof you have profoundly failed in this regard.

It goes without saying that Professor Caitlin Zaloom is named---I haven't yetdecided if I will name Klinenberg.

I have cc'd every CAS dean on this email, as well as any CAS professors whoseclasses I have taken in the past, and whose opinions I deeply respect, and


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admire.

I have also cc'd Jen Heerwig---I don't particularly care about what she has to say,as taking on an immature grad student on a power-trip really doesn't fall high onmy list of priorities.

However, I would like to remind you that I have 2 classmates who are willing totestify about Jen's discriminatory behavior that I have described above.

So Jen, please think carefully if you are questioned, as this may very well go tocourt.

Lastly, I have over 1,000 friends on facebook, and if Professor Zaloom does notresign, or is not fired by 9 am tomorrow morning, I will publish every single emailexchange we have had, on my facebook account.

I will also print out this letter, and hand it to students outside of Bobst library.

Again though, because you have wasted so much of my vacation time, and impinged onmy study time during finals week by not helping me, this still is not enough.

Starting right now, I will post a status regarding this situation on my facebookwall---I will not name any names, but after 9 am tomorrow, I will start namingpeople and I will publicize that Professor Zaloom was a spousal hire---

I have someone who works for NYU who has confirmed this, and she is willing toreveal her identity, though I personally think this is pointless. I don't need anyoneto get in to trouble for no reason---I have enough evidence on my own, thank you.

It is a little after 11:00 pm on Tuesday, January 3, 2012

If Professor Caitlin Zaloom has not resigned or been fired by Wednesday, January 4,2012, at 9:00 am, I will publish the op-ed on Thursday.

Again, because you wasted my time these last few weeks, and have also, in turn, forcedme to extend the deadline for the op-ed to be published, I will have to make up for that'publicity' in some other way---this will be via hourly facebook status updates, which willkeep all identities of those involved anonymous until tomorrow, January 4, 2012, at 9:00am.

Thank you.

All the best,Sara Ackerman

sara ackerman emails: “an open letter to john sexton regarding professor caitlin zaloom”

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