Tag: Black Lives Matter Movement

African-American

University of West Florida Students Create Black Lives Matter Public Mural

The Kugelman Honors Program at the University of West Florida (UWF) selected fifteen students to create a public mural as a collective response to the Black Lives Matter movement. The mural is displayed in the John C. Pace Library. The program sponsored the project as part of its Equity and Diversity Initiative. “UWF has a […]

June 18, 2021

HBCUs

Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself: A Message on Behalf of Greatly Underinvested, Often Forgotten Historically Black Colleges and Universities

To say that 2020 has been one of the most abnormally jagged and oddly long years serves as an understatement. From a pandemic that has emancipated the souls of over 211,000 Americans to young people taking to the street to erasure of the country’s oldest institutions, 2020 has shaped into one of the most unpredictable and emotionally exhausting years in decades.

October 13, 2020

Social Justice

Equity Requires Action

COVID-19 has affected us all in different ways. During the spring semester, most colleges and universities had to pivot to move courses online. At that time most, if not all, students left campus. As the American Medical Association pointed out, the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) populations because they “suffer disproportionally, due to the inequities in society perpetuated by systematic practices.”

October 2, 2020

Faculty & Staff

Say Their Names, But Not the N-Word

The current reckoning about anti-Blackness in the United States is exposing the limits of solidarity. Millions of white and non-white people have marched and expressed support for Black Lives by saying the names of men and women brutally killed or shot in police custody. This powerful act of solidarity humanizes these victims while bearing witness to systemic racism. At the same time, faculty in some of our nation’s colleges and universities continue to defend the right to utter the N-word as part of their educational practice. This counterintuitive notion is not just tone-deaf to the national reckoning but harms the institutional culture, devalues the presence of Black faculty, staff and students, and compromises the moral credibility of the professoriate.

September 30, 2020

African-American

Black Students Must Experience Black Life Outside of the U.S.

When I reflect on the Black Lives Matter movement and the many viral images that have galvanized protesters into action, my mind keeps going back to a disquieting video that did not result in belligerent shouting or bloodshed.

September 23, 2020

Opinion

Understanding the Historical Context of the Black Lives Matter Movement

When the National Association for Black Culture Centers brought Dr. James Stewart to Vanderbilt University in 1999 as a keynote speaker, the focus was on understanding the dangers of focusing on multiculturalism as a framework for achieving equity in higher education. He expressed concern that this approach would deflect attention from the long history of […]

September 22, 2020

Students

10 Concrete Policy Changes PWIs Can Enact to Show Black Lives Matter

As senior leaders prepare for the fall semester, I would like to provide 10 concrete policies and practices that could positively impact the institutional climates for their Black populations.

June 25, 2020

Social Justice

On Social Justice, Black Lives Matter and the Power of Prayer

As a Black Man in America I pray that God Bless the “Black Lives Matter” movement for its continued critical advocacy and activism for social justice; and to publicly disassociate from factions that promote and further perpetuate fear, violence and destruction linked with Blackness.

June 17, 2020

African-American

Now, More than Ever, America Needs More Black Male Social Studies Teachers

For Black students in America, having a same-race social studies teacher is extremely rare. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), social studies teachers make up just 7% of the entire teacher workforce. And of all social studies teachers, roughly 94% are White (54% men and 40% women). Just 3% of America’s social studies teachers are Black men. And only 3% are Black women. In fact, the average social studies teacher is a White male in his mid-40s despite the fact that men only make up 23% of all teachers. As a result, only 1 to 2 lessons or 8–9% of total US History class time is devoted to Black history.

June 16, 2020

Students

Can the Racial and Economic Justice Movement Help Advance Equity in Higher Education?

While still not universally embraced, there is a growing recognition that the Black Lives Matter movement cannot be ignored. This acknowledgement by some of the most unlikely individuals and institutions, like the National Football League, is a sign that change is afoot.

June 9, 2020

African-American

Five Books That Every White Ally Should Read on Black Lives

Over the past several weeks, an increasingly number of White colleagues and friends have reached out to me inquiring how they can better support Black people. Specifically, they have asked where to donate monies, what to say to show support to their Black colleagues, and what books they should read. Of these, the latter has been among the most recurrent question I have been asked.

June 8, 2020

HBCUs

What Do We Tell Our Children, Our Students?

For the past few days, I, like many others, have been viewing through the lens of the media, the reaction of our country to the deplorable and senseless death of yet another defenseless black person at the hands of a white police officer, a tragic mockery to the truth that Black Lives Matter. Similar to other Americans, I am overcome with a range of emotions.

June 3, 2020