In response to the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests, Cornell University president Martha Pollack announced immediate “antiracist” actions taken at the university-level. In an email sent to the campus community on June 3, 2020, President Pollack pledged to pursue reform of the Cornell University Police Department and urged members of the campus community to read Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist. Following a sense of the Faculty Senate resolution in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and in support of freedom of assembly, President Pollack announced a series of actions to create a more “just and equitable” university.
Outlining what is now known as “The Antiracism Initiative,” President Pollack charged the Faculty Senate with three tasks, in addition to announcing other reforms. First, she asked the Senate to create a “for-credit, educational requirement on racism, bias and equity” for all Cornell students. Next, she instructed the Faculty Senate to explore the creation of an “Anti-Racism Center that further strengthens our research and education on systems and structures that perpetuate racism and inequality.” The center would also put forward “policies and interventions that break” the cycle of systemic racism. Lastly, Pollack charged the Senate with the creation of a faculty educational requirement, consisting of “programming and follow-on discussions in their departments” on “the history of race, racism and colonialism in the United States, designed to ensure understanding of how inherited social and historical forces have shaped our society today, and how they affect interactions inside and outside of our classrooms, laboratories and studios.” Having been given this charge, the Faculty Senate began to work on the individual prongs of “The Antiracism Initiative” over the summer, with three working groups focusing on each prong of the initiative.
More than six months after President Pollack announced “The Antiracism Initiative,” the final drafts of the working groups’ reports were released. Working Group C’s proposals for the creation of an Antiracism Center was on the Faculty Senate’s agenda for March 17, 2021. The final report on the center envisioned it as a hub for scholarship and activism that “creates greater justice and equity on campus and beyond” and as a “programmatic space” which will sponsor “an annual focal theme, a pipeline to-the-academy program, and selected grant-making programs.” The center’s research will focus on “the many interlocking forms of racism and bias that are directed at Black American, Indigenous, LatinX, Asian American, and other marginalized and targeted peoples.”
Working Groups S and F, focused on the educational requirement for students and faculty respectively, have released the final drafts of their reports and will be heard at the April 14 meeting of the Faculty Senate. The educational requirement for students will have a “Literacy Outcome” (focusing on “structural racism, colonialism, and injustice, and their current manifestations”) and a “Skillset Outcome” (focusing on “how to communicate and advocate across the differences that they will encounter throughout their lives and careers”). Though it is unclear how the student requirement will be administered, the Working Group has suggested that the two outcomes can be achieved within one course, with faculty leading these sessions bringing in their own discipline-specific expertise.
The educational requirement for faculty follows a similar structure to the student educational requirement. The goal of the faculty education program is “to understand that structural racism, colonialism, and injustice, and their current manifestations have a historical and relational basis…” The working group suggests that the requirement take 1.5-2 hours each semester, with some components incorporated into departmental meetings. In order to incentivize participation, the working group suggests that participation in the program be mandatory for faculty wishing to:
“(a) hire students or staff for research in their labs and field offices (b) teach (c) supervise Teaching Assistants (d) advise and mentor students, post docs, and younger colleagues (e) advise or be involved in co- or extra-curricular activities, including student clubs or (f) be involved in student residential life as Faculty-in-Residence or House Deans.”
Though Working Group F was initially concerned about academic freedom for faculty, it insisted that the implementation of the program would not be a violation of academic freedom. They emphasized that, under Cornell University’s new statement, academic freedom does not “provide license for faculty members to do whatever they choose.”
With the Faculty Senate on track to approve these proposals, it seems that the Antiracism Initiative may make its way fully onto campus within the next two to three years. Implementation of the initiative, as the groups’ reports suggest, will take at least one, if not two, years, with educational requirements being developed at the college-level. One will have to see whether these initiatives will be met with a warm reception or resistance. But, until the program is implemented, that remains to be seen.
