When Harold Washington College student Anadarith Hurtado submitted his proposal for a research paper to his English Composition 102 professor and Harold Washington Adjunct Lecturer Alonda McCree, it read "In a constitutional land known for equality, justice and freedom for the people, there are a group that seem not to feel the same equality, justice and freedom. That group being transgender individuals that feel their rights are violated day-by-day due to their inner selves born in the wrong body."
McCree returned it with her commentary in red pen. The words "transgender individuals" had been circled along with an arrow to McCree's statement: "These people don't have rights. They choose to be transgender. Pick another topic."
Hurtado, a transgender male, was stunned. "Wow," he wrote on his Facebook page on March 3, "seriously never imagined getting this kind of feedback from my professor."
He then went back to look at McCree's list of topic ideas for students to select.
Toward the bottom of a political and ideological Hobson's choice that included "pregnant women and their partners must participate in mandatory testing and finance classes before giving birth in order to keep their babies" and "parents who allow their children to become overweight and/or obese are exercising a form of child abuse and should lose their custodial rights" were "no one living in the United States can be eligible for government programs of any kind if they don't speak fluent English" and "homosexual couples should not receive the same marriage benefits as heterosexual couples. "
"It was very disrespectful," Hurtado told CBS 2 News. "I'm trying to get my education and this is the type of feedback that I get. It's really hard."
McCree herself has received mixed feedback from her former students with one stating on Rate My Professors that she is "rude at times even though she doesn't notice she is."
On her Facebook page in 2014, McCree complained about the ability of her students to submit their papers in an American Psychological Association (APA) format.
"What have they been doing for the last 11 weeks?" McCree wrote. "Obviously not working on these papers. I tried not to micro-manage them but I guess I gave them too much leniency. Struggles of a college professor."
Harold Washington College is part of City Colleges of Chicago.
In 2014 it was named in a federal lawsuit filed by a job applicant with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging age discrimination.
The school has a pride alliance on campus.
Windy City Times reached out to City Colleges of Chicago regarding the incident with McCree The publication was told, in a statement, that it has "launched an investigation into an allegation of discrimination at one of our colleges. We cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, but should we determine any employee engaged in an act of discrimination, appropriate action will be taken."
The statement went on to assert that "City Colleges of Chicago maintains a strict, zero-tolerance non-discrimination policy and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, citizenship, sexual orientation, marital status, disability or handicap, or veteran status."
