Our Views on the University's Response
“’We’re better than THAT’ places the power and responsibility to shape our community in each of our hands. By learning ways to react when we offend others or are offended by them, or when we are a witness to an ugly comment or conversation, we can acknowledge and act on this shared responsibility.”- University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is not better than racism. The community has been prodded to grapple with the concept of race on several occasions. A confederate flag was hung in a student’s window. Protests have challenged the University’s racial climate. Racial slurs and threats of bodily harm have surfaced. Microaggressions continue to exist. If one were to probe beyond the past four years, they would undoubtedly find that the concerns raised by students of color on this campus are not new. No one is immune to the very racism upon which this nation was built.
According to Forbes’ 2016 findings, the University’s undergraduate population is 4.68% Black and 53.94% White. The University of Rochester’s 2015 Diversity Report states that, as of 2014, the Black faculty on campus made up 2.1% of the University’s 1,933 faculty members. White faculty comprised 81.3% of the population. These numbers alone show that the University of Rochester is a predominantly white institution.
When it comes to being part of a numerical minority, the same students of color on this campus who face the negative externalities of structural racism are forced to challenge the status quo. They are forced to do so while balancing academic rigors and others’ insistence that the racism students of color face is nonexistent.
Racism extends beyond individual actions and hurling racial slurs, and it has not been "fixed" or solved. Though, regardless of race or ethnicity, we all attend a top academic institution, we are not all given the same advantages in life. Race is one crucial cause of this. Racism is structural and racism does not just go away overnight. It takes work. It takes acquiring the knowledge of its origins.
There is no doubt that attempts have been made at this University to grapple with race and racism. Yet, somehow, in trying to be ever better, it is the administration who continues to inadequately address reoccurring issues of safety, representation, and education. The administration may hear and react to the sounds of protest, but they neglect to properly listen to the concerned students of color on this campus.
#BlackLivesMatter has helped to raise the consciousness of the United States. We can help raise the consciousness of the University of Rochester. We all live in a society organized based on the concept of categorizing individuals based off of visually constructed racial markers. The first step we need to take is to define racism. There is a difference between individual racism and structural racism. What we are dealing with is both.
Structural Racism: “A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. Structural racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice.Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist.” -The Aspen Institute
Individual Racism: Individual racism can include face-to-face or covert actions toward a person that intentionally express prejudice, hate or bias based on race. -The Aspen Institute
Timeline of Events
*Note: This is not a comprehensive timeline of racialized events at the University. The aim of chronicling the following events is to present the most salient racialized occurrences from the perspective of a University undergraduate senior*
October 2013- A white 19-year-old male student from North Carolina displays a confederate flag in the window of his room on the Fraternity Quad before Meliora Weekend. He claims his right to free expression is violated. Others claim the flag is displaying hate. Charged exchanges between students on Facebook ensue.
August 2014- The product of Rochester alum of color and students of color, Building Leadership and Community Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K) is born out of students organizing to support Ferguson protestors.
October 2014- Students of color and allies protest on the River Campus to raise awareness about Ferguson Protests. A group of students and alum head to Ferguson.
November 2014- Venus, a production about Sara Baartman—a black South African woman stolen from her native home to be paraded in the nude at a London freak-show—is put on by students in the International Theatre Program.
December 2014 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), host “What Rights?:Police Brutality in Rochester,” a panel discussion to educate the campus community about incidents of police brutality in Rochester and the rights one has when encountering injustice.
December 2014 University of Rochester Medical students participate in White Coats for Black Lives, an event occurring at over 70 medical schools and hospitals protesting brutality against black bodies in an effort to support #BlackLivesMatter.
March 2015- Douglass Leadership House (DLH)—a house predominantly occupied by minority students celebrating black cultures — renews its housing contract. Racial hate speech and bodily threats against students of color via Yik Yak, a social media app, ensue.
November 2015- Concerned Student 1950, a group formed by University of Missouri students of color, protest in response to racist threats on campus. This prompts collegiate students nationwide to stand in solidarity. University of Rochester students continue to address the racial climate on campus.
November 2015- University of Rochester student of color leaders and allies protest and submit a list of demands on behalf of the underrepresented minority students at the University of Rochester.
November 2015- President Seligman issues a response to the list of demands and proposes a commission on race comprised of mostly administrators and only four undergraduate students, two of them being students of color.
December 2015- First town hall on race is held.
January 2016- Most recent town hall is held (as of April 7th 2016)
January 2016- The University adds two new courses on race to the Rochester course catalog: Representations of Black Childhood and The Black Body: Intersecting Intimacies, and by extension, two new black faculty members
February 2016- Commission on Race submits interim report. Students stage a walk out in response to list of demands not being adequately or fully met.
February 2016- University sends out Campus Climate survey.
March 2016- First Annual Joint Collegiate Black Student Summit is organized by the University of Rochester Black Students’ Union. The summit brought student leaders of color from across the country together to determine ways to address racial the various climates on college campuses.
March 2016- The University of Rochester rolls out its “We’re Better Than That” campaign. Some students respond with a general dissatisfaction at the execution of the campaign.
March 2016- In an attempt to be more inclusive to the non-fraternity houses on the Fraternity Quad, a student creates a petition proposing changing the name of the Fraternity Quad. Some students involved in fraternity/sorority life feel this is an attack on their contributions to the campus.
March 2016- Campaign architect responds to student criticism in the Campus Times
April 2016- Shaun King is the keynote speaker for the 2016 Diversity Conference. He publicly opposes President Seligman's decision to allow Yik Yak in his speech. (NB: We are not endorsing Shaun King as an anti-racist activist/ expert, but just presenting a timeline).
