This commentary is by Kenneth Allen of Burlington, a senior lecturer in biomedical and health sciences at the University of Vermont.
In response to the April 20 verdict in the killing of George Floyd, UVM President Suresh Garimella, like the presidents of most colleges and universities, sent a well-scripted and likely well-meaning letter to the UVM community with the subject line “Justice.”
In this letter, President Garimella acknowledged the trauma experienced by members of the black community and a call to stand in solidarity with members of our community who are Black, brown, Indigenous, and people of color. He concluded by asking us to join him in “hoping” for peace.
This all sounds good but our nation’s 400-plus-year history of racism, and this past year’s revelations of the extent to which racism persists, demand more than hope and solidarity. We need action.
I call on the administration to go beyond its usual performative rhetoric and actively engage in implementing anti-racist solutions.
We can start by acknowledging the legacy of racism that can still be seen right here on the campus, like blackout dates defining when the Student Government Association may fly the Black Lives Matter Flag and when if cannot.
We can listen to the voices of the BIPOC community and actively work to address their concerns based on their lived experiences.
We can implement the recommendations of the now disbanded President’s Commission on Inclusive Excellence.
We can stop praising ourselves for our efforts and instead hold ourselves accountable for our results.
Currently, 1.2% of students and 1.2% of faculty identify as Black or African American. While these numbers are proportional to the demographics of Vermont, it is important to recognize that UVM recruits its student body nationally, with approximately 72% of our student body coming from outside of Vermont.
It is also widely accepted that, if UVM is to continue to thrive, we will need to recruit more and more students from an increasingly diverse country. This means that, if we are to continue to thrive as a university, we must create a campus environment that is welcoming and supportive of students of color — a place where students of color can see themselves thriving.
While I commend the administration’s efforts around the implementation of the Student Opportunity, Access and Recruitment initiative that seeks to improve equity in access to UVM through donor-supported scholarships, we need to do much more than create a scholarship fund if we are to address structural racism, and recruit and retain a diverse cohort of students and faculty.
We have to move away from our compartmentalized approach to equity and inclusion where we create a committee here, implement a program there, add an administrative title or two in the name of equity, and pat ourselves on the back for our efforts. We can’t continue to maintain the status quo approach, write eloquently about the hope for justice and the need to stand with each other, and expect to see a dismantling of systematic racism.
We have to actively engage an anti-racism approach in everything we do in order to create the kind of welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment that is consistent with our ideals and the values which we espouse.
