The global pandemic and racial reckoning that shook the entire country also had a major impact on the higher ed sector in 2020 — much of that impact has continued through 2021. COVID-19 vaccines have become available, and many higher ed institutions played critical roles as vaccine distribution sites for their communities and key sources of information about the vaccine itself.
Army Spc. Angel Laureano holds a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., Dec. 14, 2020.
By all accounts, the biggest storyline of 2021 is the return to campus in the fall semester and an attempt to reclaim a sense of normalcy. In some ways, this clamoring for normal is disappointing to those who were hopeful for meaningful and much needed change in the sector. Many populations saw the gaps in access and enrollment widen during 2020. Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, notes “a growing economic and racial segregation in higher ed,” with Black and Latino males being particularly hard hit.
But Pasquerella also sees this as an exciting time for institutions to continue to build on the lessons from the past year and “reimagine higher ed in a way that goes beyond performative allyship and demonstrates that we’re truly committed to racial equity” for faculty, staff and students.
On equal footing?
On January 6, 2021, insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol as supporters of former President Donald Trump protested Trump’s loss in the November 2020 election. Scholars from across the nation drew a sharp contrast to how the White protestors who stormed the Capitol were treated as compared to Black Lives Matter protestors who continued to protest the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others, some saying that the divergence in treatment was an illustration of White privilege.
