Fresno State rescinds job offer after candidate lies about Black, Cuban heritage

A graduate student who was offered a tenure-track job at Fresno State has now had that offer rescinded, after falsely claiming they were Black, according to the university and several Medium posts.

CV Vitolo-Haddad, who uses the pronoun they, was to begin teaching at Fresno State in fall 2021, pending a background check, the university said in a statement on Thursday. Vitolo-Haddad is currently a journalism and mass communications doctorate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Vitolo-Haddad couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Vitolo-Haddad is accused of misrepresenting their identity, which is not Black or Latinx, but Italian, according to Medium posts reportedly authored by Vitolo-Haddad and an anonymous poster.

“We can confirm that CV Vitolo-Haddad will not be a faculty member at Fresno State,” the university said Thursday.

In an earlier statement acknowledging the incident, the university said it was looking into the matter: “We are taking this matter seriously and acknowledge the pain and confusion this situation has caused members of our campus and external community.”

The allegations against Vitolo-Haddad first came to light on Sept. 4, from an anonymous poster who claimed to be an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and to know Vitolo-Haddad.

“... CV is not only an academic capitalizing on the performance of Blackness in their research; they also deploy their identity to gain access to and credibility in the ever-growing movements for Black power and justice in Wisconsin,” the poster wrote.

Shortly after, it appeared two other posts were written by Vitolo-Haddad, who said they wanted to apologize for representing themselves as Cuban and Black.

“What I know is that I am Southern Italian/Sicilian,” they wrote. “In trying to make sense of my experiences with race, I grossly misstepped. All of those actions were deeply misguided and have caused an incredible amount of hurt for the Madison community, those I organize with, and everyone who has been exposed to this public reckoning. It was my choice and error to identify any differently.”

Vitolo-Haddad, who was president of the Teaching Assistants Association at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, resigned from their position, they said. They also resigned from teaching at the university.

The union released a statement condemning Vitolo-Haddad’s actions.

“We cannot speak for CV, but we as TAA leaders are profoundly sorry for the harm they have caused members of the Madison community by 1) claiming Black and Brown identities, 2) using those identities to silence and alienate activists in organizing spaces, and 3) manipulating and gaslighting Black and Brown community members who tried holding them accountable,” the statement read.

Vitolo-Haddad would have been an assistant professor in Fresno State’s Department of Communication and the director of forensics, a university official said.

The incident comes after another notable instance of a white academic claiming to be a person of color.

Jessica Krug, a professor at George Washington University, used Medium to announce that she too had claimed to be Black for years, before revealing she is white and Jewish.

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab here.

This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 1:58 PM.