‘Short, Asian and Quaker’
April 19, 2007
Today’s column, written before the Virginia Tech shootings, is also focused on Virginia. Also, by coincidence, today’s column is about an Asian Pacific American who served as an administrator at a school not far from where the alleged shooter graduated.
My original intent had been to look at the story of one man, Ting-Yi Oei, and link his quest for a principal’s position to the broader struggle to break the glass ceiling that faces APAs all across the country. Instead, this column will celebrate Mr. Oei, while also serving as a reminder that the APA community in Virginia, like that in every other part of this nation, faces issues that range from representation and equal opportunity to what could involve severe mental health concerns.
Ting-Yi Oei, 58, is the kind of person every parent wants as a principal for his child’s high school. He not only has a B.A. in History from Hamilton College, a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree from Brown University and a Secondary School Principal Endorsement from the University of Virginia’s Educational Leadership Program, but also has been an award-winning teacher and innovative administrator for 28 years.
Mr. Oei’s Chinese and Dutch parents met in the Hague during World War II when his mother was a member of the Dutch Resistance and his father was a Chinese student trying to avoid deportation to a Nazi work camp. Not surprisingly, Ting-Yi has devoted his life to working for peace and tolerance. He served for five years in the Peace Corps, taught school in Santo Domingo and Scotland (the latter on a Fulbright), and received a prestigious research fellowship to address tolerance issues.
He was named “Teacher of the Year” at one school where he taught, was invited to three National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) institutes, and received positive evaluations from his supervisors throughout his career.
Fairfax County, Virginia, where Mr. Oei was teaching, is a bedroom suburb of Washington, D.C. APAs are the largest minority population. The County’s latest figures show that 17.4 percent of Fairfax students are APAs, with most derived from Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese roots.
Despite these statistics, there was not a single APA on the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Leadership Team as recently as 2004, and only one individual who had achieved the position of principal (and that person had been appointed, not selected through the usual hiring process). Even in lower job classifications within the school board or superintendent’s office, the vast majority of APAs and other minorities could be found in the lowest-paying jobs.
Mr. Oei interviewed before 12 community advisory panels [totaling over 95 people] between 1996 and 2004 in his quest to attain various administrative positions, and only once did a panel include an APA member.
To make a long story short, Mr. Oei applied for three principal positions in 2004 and did not get any of them. Among the comments he heard from an administrator was that, “You have three strikes against you: you’re short, Asian and Quaker.” One interviewer decided to call him “Mr. T” rather than use his name.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigated Mr. Oei’s claim and granted him a right to sue letter. Oei then filed a lawsuit in federal court in Virginia, but his case was dismissed before going to trial on April 6. A written opinion detailing the exact reasons why the judge threw out Mr. Oei’s case is due out shortly.
No matter what the final outcome on Mr. Oei’s case, it is a strong reminder that the battle for parity in the leadership roles of our nation’s schools is continuing to take place all across the country. APAs hold six percent of university faculty positions in the nation, but less than two percent actually lead institutions of higher learning. The numbers on the K-12 level are even more depressing.
Mr. Oei and his family have shouldered a tremendous financial and emotional burden to bring their lawsuit, knowing full well that the benefits of changing the system might not go to Mr. Oei himself, but to some future aspiring administrator. I would encourage anyone who supports the cause Mr. Oei has fought for all these years to send a donation to help him defray his huge expenses, and meanwhile, find ways to help the next Ting-Yi as he or she rises up the ranks to lead our nation’s schools.
Donations to help Mr. Oei can be sent to Friends Of Ting-Yi Oei, c/o Ameriprise, 8150 Leesburg Pike, Suite 500, Vienna, Virginia 22182 .
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