Troy

You can certainly understand why many RPI graduates were upset by the email sent out Monday, the one suggesting that anger at Shirley Ann Jackson is motivated by her race and gender.

In reality, there are abundant reasons for alumni to be unhappy with Jackson, whose time as the school's president has been unnecessarily adversarial.

Sexism and racism?

They are not driving factors in the controversies that bedevil Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jackson is no victim.

To be clear, we don't know if Jackson believes she is. The email was written by Professor Christopher Bystroff without her input.

But the school's decision to forward the email to alumni was a tacit endorsement of its message, though RPI officials claimed that wasn't the intention.

"I can't help thinking that if she were white, male (and maybe a bit taller!) she would not be so quickly dismissed as an autocrat," Bystroff wrote. "Are we to believe that 200 years of institutional racism and sexism were suddenly erased when Shirley Jackson was installed?"

Of course not.

Nor should we doubt that Jackson, who is black, faced racism and sexism along her journey to Troy and the RPI presidency.

Jackson was born in 1946 and raised in a Washington, D.C., where Jim Crow segregation was a shameful reality. She overcame it.

In 1964, she arrived at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was overwhelmingly male and white. She overcame again, becoming the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. from the school.

Jackson's story is inspirational. Her tenure at RPI has been anything but.

Her imperious management style has alienated students, faculty and alumni to the point that, as Times Union education writer Bethany Bump reported, financial donations to the school have dropped precipitously.

Among the estranged are graduates like Fred Wuenschel, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the school decades ago. He stayed connected to the campus through the early years of Jackson's tenure, when he was a member of an alumni group of successful executives.

"She did not have much of an appreciation for listening to them," said Wuenschel, who lives near Buffalo. "It was a one-way conversation."

Five years ago, Wuenschel stopped donating to protest the school's direction. He was hardly alone: Alumni donor participation at RPI fell by half from 2001 to 2016, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Some alumni may be turned off by outlandish capital spending on projects like EMPAC, the $200 million performance hall, or the 20,000-square-foot presidential mansion built for $3.5 million.

Or maybe they're bothered by Jackson's salary. She is routinely among the most highly paid university presidents in the country.

Or perhaps they concerned by the school's apparently weakened financial situation. Alumni research published online paints a picture of rising debt and limited financial transparency amid declining donations and graduate enrollment.

Or maybe graduates are disgusted by the school's intolerance toward free speech and dissent. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education cites "a disconcerting pattern" of silencing protest at RPI.

You can be bothered by all that without being sexist or racist. And so it's no wonder that alumni like Wuenschel found Bystoff's email offensive. "It was certainly insulting," Wuenschel said.

In an interview, Bystroff said he had never intended to have his email read by alumni and would have worded it more gently had he known it would find such a wide audience.

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But the biological sciences professor said the emotional and angry tone of the many responses he has received suggests he hit on an uncomfortable truth. He hasn't changed his mind; Bystroff still sees a lot of racism and sexism in the hostility to Jackson.

At the same time, the professor agrees she's an autocrat.

"I don't see her listening to suggestions from faculty and students," Bystroff said. "She thinks she knows more than everyone else, and maybe she does."

No doubt, Jackson's trailblazing career wouldn't have been possible without abundant self-confidence. We would probably admire her assurance more, though, if it hadn't led to what the Chronicle of Higher Education called "demoralization" and "a toxic tone" at her school.

But Bystroff isn't entirely wrong. It is true that society is more accepting of dictatorial leadership from men. We tolerate, and sometimes even admire, men with swagger, the arrogant alphas who treat subordinates poorly.

That doesn't mean, though, that we should start admiring women who behave similarly. The better response is to stop accepting those horrible qualities in men — to see autocratic leadership for what it really is:

Weakness.

cchurchill@timesunion.com • 518-454-5442 • @chris_churchill