Across the country, lauded institutions are undergoing a historically unprecedented racial reckoning. The changes range from the long-overdue — such as committing to more diverse leadership — to the puzzling. (Were people of color clamoring for the use of the term “master bedroom” to end?) Universities have stepped to the forefront of the conversation, rethinking everything from building names to hiring practices.
But these attempts at transformation face a roadblock: Why should the leaders who created, reinforced and benefited from racist structures be the best candidates to identify and dismantle them? And at what point do we face the ugly truth that our educational institutions cannot be “anti-racist” without confronting and dismantling the racist power structures foundational to their very existence?
On July 7, University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer sent an email to faculty, students and staff, announcing that a bronze plaque of slaveholder Stephen A. Douglas would be removed from a student dining area. Zimmer closed the email by proclaiming that “The University of Chicago denounces racism in all forms and is committed to making positive and sustainable change on issues of racial bias and inequities.”
But the work of anti-racism goes beyond issuing a carefully crafted statement. For those on campus and across the broader city of Chicago who have spent generations fighting the racism perpetuated by the university, the email’s last line elicited a kind of sickened laughter.
From the university’s refusal to directly acknowledge how it financially benefited from slavery to its support of racial covenants and active role in urban renewal efforts designed to maintain white populations in surrounding neighborhoods, the university has historically amassed immense power and resources at the expense of Black people thriving. This has never been formally acknowledged by the university, and removing a plaque is not enough.
This isn’t a matter of distant histories. The University of Chicago Police Department, or UCPD, is currently one of the largest private police forces in the country, with a jurisdiction of over 65,000 people, spanning beyond campus and into several predominantly Black Chicago neighborhoods. We don’t know the budget of this police force because the administration refuses to tell us. In 2018, campus officers shot an undergraduate student, after being recorded on a bodycam acknowledging that he was experiencing a mental health episode.
When administrators are faced with demands that the UCPD be defunded, they say more research is necessary. As scholars, we agree that research matters. Economist Damon Jones, an affiliate of the university’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, analyzed the data on field stops carried out by the UCPD, and found that 73% of targets in traffic stops were Black, and 94% of those targeted in non-traffic stops were Black. Currently, about 5% of our enrolled students are Black.
Some of the documented justification for these stops is chilling. In one note, an officer wrote that an “unaffiliated juvenile was observed suspiciously loitering near a bike rack.” The language (“unaffiliated”) is telling. It’s as if one purpose of UCPD is to maintain the racial boundary between the university and our neighbors through violence and intimidation.
Of course, for Black students, faculty and staff, being “affiliated” is not enough protection. In 2010, UCPD officers put an undergraduate student in a chokehold for allegedly being too loud in the library. He was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing, though witnesses said he was never asked for identification.
A broad coalition of scholars and stakeholders has said that enough is enough. On Aug. 4, we co-published a letter issuing a broad set of faculty demands, including disarmament and defunding of UCPD and a commission to recommend means of repairing the university’s harms. It’s been signed by over 1,700 people. Campus librarians issued a public statement calling for the dismantling of UCPD, stating that they “cannot maintain a scholarly environment in library spaces under the threat of racial profiling or violence from campus police.”
And our students are leading the way. On Aug. 26, Black graduate students issued a call to action. Drawing on findings from the university’s own 2016 Climate Survey, they argue the university’s “rhetoric of diversity and inclusion is inadequate to redress the lived experiences of the 78% of Black UChicago community members who … have considered not recommending the university to a prospective member of our community.” In early September, the student-led #CareNotCops campaign organized an occupation outside of the provost’s home, demanding that the UCPD be defunded and disarmed, that they disclose their budget and that they ultimately be disbanded by 2022.
When students protest in this way, they are told that these are not appropriate ways to demand change. But history shows us that the institution looks down on such protest when it is happening, only to co-opt it in the future.
A decade ago, student protesters allied with neighborhood leaders held rallies and sit-ins to demand that the university hospital open a trauma center to address the issue of gun violence and hospital accessibility across the South Side. They were derided and arrested. Today, the trauma center is open, and boasts of its efforts to “promote holistic recovery and advance a rigorous research agenda that deepens our understanding of traumatic injury and violence. The ultimate goal? Create a model that can be replicated by other trauma centers across the country.”
None of this would have happened without disruptive protest, and none of that protest is acknowledged now. This is the “good trouble” John Lewis was talking about. Sadly, many institutional leaders would rather quote truisms from the civil rights movement without living by its ideals.
Like many institutions, ours has neatly packaged these concerns as matters of “diversity,” to be tucked away on a website and addressed politely through webinars. In 2017, Zimmer told The Wall Street Journal that it would be “fine” if white supremacist Richard Spencer came to speak on our campus, arguing that the “confrontation of ideas that are different from one’s own is critical” to the mission of the university.
This illustrates brilliantly why the construct of “diversity” is so broken. It flattens the historical reality of power relationships in favor of a vague construct in which “differences” of any kind are treated with unilateral regard. In fact, the “difference” of being trans, or Black, or undocumented, and as a result being threatened by state-sanctioned violence, is not the same as the “difference” of being a white supremacist.
So we demand more than diversity. Many of America’s most storied institutions have made their fortune through racist acts. Remedying that fact is not easy. It requires honest acknowledgment of the past, and well-resourced actions in the present. It requires an ongoing willingness to challenge hierarchies, and to empower the people who the powerful would rather ignore. Without those steps, real change is not forthcoming.
Adrienne R. Brown is an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Chicago. Eve L. Ewing is an assistant professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago.
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