Popular Hamden teacher fired and facing deportation

Christian Termyn investigates one woman’s tireless legal battle to stay and work in our country.

Six months into her stay in the U.S., Bai “Catherine” Haiyan has been fired from her job, arrested on assault charges, slandered by educational organizations here and in her native China, and acquitted before a Superior Court. Bai, a Chinese citizen teaching at Hamden High School as part of a teaching exchange program, had been teaching for just two months when she first hired a lawyer to contest a discriminatory salary dispute with her employer, Hamden Public Schools (HPS).

She now faces deportation, so long as she lacks a sponsor for her J-1 non-immigrant visa. (The HPS school board has declined to comment on the termination of Bai’s employment in advance of court proceedings.)

HPS HIRED BAI TO TEACH MANDARIN CHINESE FOR at least one year as part of the College Board’s Chinese Guest Teacher Program, an opportunity that was available to qualified Chinese citizens through a partnership with Hanban, a language council affiliated with the Chinese Education Ministry.

Bai’s contract with HPS was inked in May 2009, with a contractual letter of appointment outlining the terms of her employment. The letter defined her salary, roughly 36,000 dollars, as “commensurate with compensation received by those teachers employed with Hamden with responsibilities and similar education in Hamden.”

Together with Li Li, a second teacher employed by Hamden through this program, Bai began work in August, teaching five periods of beginner and intermediate Mandarin language classes. Her dispute with HPS began after she and Li received their first paychecks in October.

When HPS terminated her employment on Wed., Dec. 22, 2009, rendering her visa invalid, students and parents initially feared that she would have only 30 days—until Sat., Jan. 23, 2010—to remain in the U.S.

Bai is still here—the date passed without incident, giving her an opportunity to, as her lawyer Peter E. Ricciardi puts it, “remedy the “unfairness and injustice” she has encountered.

“I got my first paycheck after having worked for a month and a half, and it was very different from what I had been promised,” Bai recounted, frustrated still. “Not only had the other teachers been paid starting in August, but the administration was deducting from my wages the cost of utilities, a 2,000 dollar visa fee, and other items, like my housing benefits and transportation stipend.”

When she finally did receive payment for her work, it equaled approximately 100 dollars per week, or 15 dollars per day.

Considering their contracts were nearly identical, both Bai and Li, who were also roommates at the time, wrote a letter to HPS Superintendent Frances Rabinowitz.

The teachers expressed concern at their mistreatment and informed Rabinowitz that they would seek legal counsel. When Li eventually disengaged from legal representation, Bai was placed in a difficult position. “She was left alone to fight an intimidating legal battle in a foreign country, without the support of citizenship or union membership,” says Ricciardi.

Bai recalls an email from The College Board indicating disappointment in her retention of legal counsel and that it sent an “unfriendly” message to HPS. According to Ricciardi, Michael Belden, HPS Finance Director, also failed to follow through with an expected meeting and that, at this time, “the administration ceased all communication with Ms. Bai.”

Bai continued to teach full time, but the salary dispute remained unresolved through November and December. Then, on the evening of Dec. 20, an altercation between Bai and Li in their Hamden apartment resulted in Bai’s arrest on charges of domestic assault.

The court, however, quickly dismissed the charges (“in three minutes,” Bai says). Even so, approximately 10 hours after Bai’s arrest, HPS had already hired a replacement, a process that normally takes an administration months.

“We have yet to be formally notified that her employment was terminated for any specific reason,” her lawyer Ricciardi insists. “My assertion is that had she not been seeking legal means to get her salary, they would never have fired her.”

Though Bai was not deported as anticipated on Jan. 23, it is unclear how long, and on what terms, she will be allowed to remain in the U.S. without a visa.

Even with her standing in this country extremely tenuous, her students’ loyalty remains intact: “If one element of this nightmare must persist,” Bai says, “I hope it will be the respect of my former students.”

Students mobilized quickly following their holiday vacation, fueled by immediacy of their teacher’s situation—at the time, Bai had barely two weeks to negotiate her position. Max Hansen, a senior at Hamden High, was one of the first students to take action. Though not one of Bai’s students, he was drawn to the case because of his interest, he says, in “immigration-related human rights.”

Hansen and other students are quick to identify Bai’s educational background and six years of prior teaching experience as an unmistakable asset to their school. Bai holds a master’s degree from Shanxi Normal University, and describes her thesis work as a comparative study of Zhuang Zi’s Taoism and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism. She cites Forrest Gump as a favorite film and Emerson’s writings as a major influence on her curiosity for “the American way and the American dream.” For her, teaching in the United States was an opportunity to experience American culture and traditions firsthand; to improve her language skills; and possibly even pursue a doctorate.

“HPS didn’t get a teacher,” said Hansen, “they got a professor, a very educated woman. People were crying when she left.”

Marcus Harun, a former student, calls Bai “one of the best teachers that I had at Hamden High, and unlike any teacher I’ve ever had before.

“The perspective she brought to class was something other language classes lacked. The express purpose for the program is to foster an exchange between students and teachers in which teachers get an experience of what America is like, students get a taste for their culture,” he said.

Harun remembers being particularly struck by Bai’s stoicism in the fall while unbeknownst to students, her salary dispute unfolded behind the scenes.

“We had no idea. She never complained to us and was smiling even though she essentially received nothing tin return for teaching a tough language to beginners at 7:30 in the morning.” Harun, who keeps in close contact with Bai, recently created a website, savemsbai.com, as platform for fundraising to cover her legal expenses.

For Hansen, Ms. Bai’s situation reflects an unfortunate irony: “In America, China can be depicted as this massive, bureaucratic, incredibly irresponsible government, yet our school is the one being opaque.”

“I got a standing ovation for my statement in Bai’s defense that I gave in front of the school board,” he says, “After I finished, the chairman [of the board] he was really proud of educating me. And I was like, ‘do you understand what we just did?’ They teach us to be socially conscious and to try to affect the world positively, but when we do, we are ignored. The irony is laughable but horrible too.”

THE COLLEGE BOARD PROGRAM IS CURRENTLY IN ITS fourth year, and has sponsored more than 330 other “guest teachers” since 2006. A recent article in the New York Times highlights a general rush by American schools, both public and private, to offer instruction in Chinese.

With spending on foreign language programs in a nationwide decline, according to a recent survey by the Center for Applied Linguistics, many of the 1,600 public schools currently offering Chinese (up from 300 in 1997) are enjoying financial assistance from the Chinese government.

In the past, an increased focus on particular language offerings has mirrored a heightened role of a country or culture in the American consciousness, such as instruction in Russian during the Cold War era and Japanese following that country’s rise as a global economic power. But while thousands of schools are now dropping their programs in German, Russian, or Japanese, the College Board expects the Chinese AP exam to become the third most popular language, after Spanish and French.

For members of Yale’s Asian American Student Alliance (AASA), knowledge of Ms. Bai’s situation raises concern for the many Chinese instructors who are the important players in this surge of Chinese demand. Seeking advice from Yale students and faculty, Hansen contacted AASA Co-Chair, David Zhang, ES ’12, whose first reaction was to research the College Board program, research whose results were not necessarily encouraging: “My impression is that one of the problems with the program may be the latitude given to schools in how they compensate these teachers.”

As if to illustrate this latitude, the Times article, however, references a situation nearly the polar opposite of Bai’s—a public high school outside Cleveland, Ohio, that handsomely pays its guest teacher 49,910 dollars in salary and other support.

“It was very disappointing to be received here in this way —as part of a Guest Teaching Program but never as a guest,” Bai says. “My experiences here have told a very different story about this country.”

IN WHAT ARE POTENTIALLY HER FINAL MONTHS IN the States, Bai is most concerned that she might be deported before having the chance to clear her record in court. While one opportunity to extend her stay is to find another sponsor for a J-1 visa, she has little confidence in being employed or accepted to a university while the terms of her dismissal from HPS remain disputed.

“It would be a dream to study at Yale,” she says, before joking that law school has never been more attractive. (Still, Bai was particularly happy to be in Hamden: “I was excited about being in Hamden, specifically because of the proximity to Yale and all its resources.”)

If Yale were to accept her, Bai would join, on average, nearly 2,000 International Scholars studying in New Haven with J-1 visa sponsorship from the University. Of the 1,970 visas administered for the academic year 2008-2009, 464 supported Chinese citizens, by far the most of any country represented.

Another option is to convince a member of Congress to sponsor a private bill, a rare form of relief from immigration laws that “are generally reserved for the most compelling cases.”

At least with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Bai’s students have made some headway. In the days before Jan. 23, Hansen, Harun, and three other students showed up at Rep. DeLauro’s office “and said we need to be urgent about this.”

AASA also encouraged lobbying DeLauro’s office. Zhang felt that “the most effective response, within our means, would be to spread the word. I wouldn’t say just ‘awareness,’ because there’s no action to that. At our first board meeting of the semester, we urged all board members to lobby Rep. DeLauro.”

While Harun and others are grateful that DeLauro’s aides acted quickly by calling the State Department, it is likely that purely vocal support will have minimal influence. Moving forward, students plan to contact both Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in search of similar support.

Unfortunately, Ricciardi says, without citizenship and thus without union membership, Bai has minimal legal footing to demand reinstatement as a HPS teacher. “HPS has taken a great teacher and poisoned and embittered the situation,” he says, “keeping her from finding her another sponsor until the law presides. HPS is not living up to the offer it made, based on the documents we’ve examined, and not following through on it has now caused her great harm…It could have repercussions on her career in China.”

In response to rumors that the altercation leading to Bai’s arrest was part of a conspiracy to justify retaliation for her salary concerns, Ricciardi is skeptical.

“The question has been raised, but largely dismissed,” he said. His focus has instead been on taping Bai’s deposition so that her statement is on record. That way, her story is clear and she retains legal standing, in the event that she is forced to leave the country before her trial proceeds.

But despite Ricciardi’s persistent efforts to give Bai her best possible chance, HPS seems determined to thwart her at every step. Bai recalls the presence of Brochu, HPS’s lawyer, during filming of her deposition. Not only does Bai find it disturbing that HPS is covering exorbitant legal expenses for his counsel—likely in excess of what she was owed as an employee—but she was shocked by his rudeness.

“He talked very fast, making it difficult for me to understand at times,” she says.

Bai also recalls a comment he made when she tried to shift her chair forward, allowing him to pass behind her. It was perhaps a simple aside, perhaps an intimidation tactic, but it encapsulates perfectly Bai’s situation: “‘Don’t worry,’ Brochu said as he passed by, ‘you’re a small person.’”

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