Open Letter to Chancellor Suárez-Orozco and Provost Berger about Hiring BIPOC Faculty
Dear Chancellor Suárez-Orozco and Provost Berger,
We come to you as students at UMass Boston who have witnessed the ways you are not doing enough to hire and support Faculty and Staff of Color at our institution. We say “you” intentionally. As our community’s leaders, it is your responsibility to ensure we do not give into systematic pressures to keep our faculty and campus leaders, and our scholarship and curriculum overwhelmingly white. We say “you” because we have read your emails to the community and even saved a few. You told us that you were committed to social and racial justice, and here we quote your words, “We must approach anti-Black racism and other racisms as severe social and public health crises that involve and do harm to every aspect of our private and public lives, in our own nation, and across the globe.”
But what about our own community? On Faculty of Color specifically, you have demonstrated your commitment to diverse and inclusive faculty hiring has its limits. Four excellent finalists for the search for the Urban Education, Leadership, and Policy Studies and Education Administration programs, all BIPOC, were brought to campus, and the department’s recommendation to hire two was rejected by the Provost. While the program will take one hire they desperately need, this is symptomatic of the administration’s chronic disinvestment in hiring and retaining the staffing our programs need to fulfill their missions.
We are sure, even without being in the room, that money is tight. But we also know that money is found when the need is prioritized. You have made bold promises in your first year in your roles, promises that are already crumbling in the face of university politics, financial constraints, and, let’s just call it what it is, other priorities. While you publicly and courageously aspire to be an anti-racist institution, your continual undervaluing of the lives, needs, and contributions of the Faculty of Color at UMass Boston is disappointing and disrespectful. You say that you recognize the symptoms of systemic inequality and the oppression of People of Color that infects higher education institutions, and particularly in the U.S. of our Black faculty, staff, and students. But like many college and university leaders before you, these recognitions are repetitive rhetoric followed by little to any meaningful action.
The lack of support for our current Faculty of Color, which at a minimum means adequate funding and staffing of operations, undermines every word that you write to the community. We have Faculty of Color, particularly women Faculty of Color, who are stretched beyond their resources to support their students, who go above and beyond in advising, dissertation and thesis supervision, and classroom instruction. The latest maneuver is particularly harmful as the Department of Leadership in Education, for almost thirty years, has pursued a social justice mission and served as one of the most important pipelines in New England for women and People of Color to advance to the highest levels of leadership in K-12 schools and higher education institutions. Our department is predominantly Students of Color and all of our students engage in anti-racist work through their research, practice, and community involvement. This latest lack of demonstrated commitment to bolster our faculty hiring sabotages the efforts of students, faculty, and the university.
We ask you, as our leaders, to figure out where you stand. We do not need another email telling us that we are moving towards an anti-racist campus. Conversations only take us so far. We need to take bold action, action that clearly signals we choose to be at the forefront of anti-racism in higher education. It starts with the immediate reversing of the decision on the Urban Education, Leadership, and Policy Studies and Education Administration programs’ faculty search recommendation to hire a second Candidate of Color. Then look across the academic departments of our university and recognize how hiring and retention practices undermine our Faculty of Color. Looking across campus leadership positions is also necessary because if People of Color are not at the “table” informing policies, practices, and systems change at UMB, then People of Color are only on the menu while predominantly white leaders make decisions for us. Together, let’s acknowledge our slow march to anti-racism and dismantling structural racism is impacted by actions and those inactions that prevent us from having a running start toward real change.
Signed,
Students of The Cypher, a collective of scholars and practitioners in the Leadership in Education Department at UMass Boston who are committed to taking action against racism and the perpetuation of whiteness at the University of Massachusetts Boston
Please show your support by signing our open letter by April 9, and then share widely! Thank you https://forms.gle/5sxuqUteUgNs7Eme8
