Following worldwide anti-racist protests, a panel of students, university administrators and BC’s lieutenant governor spoke about how racism, particularly anti-Black racism, manifests on campus and how UBC can address it.
Inspired by the province’s #DifferentTogether campaign, the eponymous June 11 webinar was moderated by Perpetuah Muthui, a strategist at the UBC Okanagan Equity & Inclusion Office (EIO), with opening remarks from UBC Vancouver and Okanagan administrators Ananya Mukherjee Reed, Deborah Buszard and Ainsley Carry, as well as Janet Austin, the province’s lieutenant governor.
BC’s #DifferentTogether campaign against racism calls on British Columbians to spread awareness by posting the hashtag on social media. Austin said it had received an “overwhelmingly positive response,” but some have said the accompanying statement was akin to an ‘all lives matter’ message, especially given it had no mention of anti-Black racism.
“When we put together the #DifferentTogether campaign, it predated the enormous protests that we have seen emerging around the world and was in fact a response to the racism flowing from the COVID-19 situation,” said Austin.
“We may need to rethink that [messaging]. It may in fact be sending the wrong message, a message that wasn’t intended. And if that is the case, then I am more than willing to look at that and see how that can be a better reflection of what the intention is.”
I pledge to oppose racism and hate. Join me by nominating 5 people to take the #DifferentTogether pledge. Our differences should not be used as excuse for violence— we can be #DifferentTogether. I nominate @ubcprez @KimCBaird @bcbcgreg @Garossino @uwmcknight pic.twitter.com/XEhAI5AXUm
— Janet Austin (@LGJanetAustin) May 29, 2020
UBCO students Jane Udochi and Binta Sesay of the UBCO African Caribbean Student Club joined the panel with their own experiences after ongoing protests in several countries following the deaths of several Black people in police hands.
“With Black people, there has been generational trauma. But also remember that we also have generational resilience,” said Sesay. “We have been okay in the past. We will be okay. And we will be even stronger in the future.”
The event was neither a community grievance session nor an educational forum, but focused rather on what university administration can do to make UBC a welcoming space for Black students and faculty and for those of colour. Administrators added few commitments for change to the list of actions released in President Santa Ono’s June 1 statement and the EIO statement posted June 11 before the panel.
Attendees asked questions about current issues prevalent in anti-racist movements internationally such as Black Lives Matter versus all lives matter and actionable allyship, and questions specific to academic spaces such as curriculum changes and far-right speakers.
Fielding a question about what the university would do to address far-right speakers whom student groups have criticized as racist or otherwise discriminatory, Carry, vice-president students at UBCV, said that existing university policies may not be adequate to address the co-opting of academic freedom.
“Throughout the history of higher education around the world, there have been far-right and far-left speakers who have introduced ideas into the academy … that were considered heresy at the time,” he said.
“Today, we are seeing speakers who are coming to campus and using that academic freedom platform to spew hate. Hate which leaves our communities fractured.” He added that UBC is looking into new academic freedom policies to address this.
UBC’s notable lack of race data collection for students and faculty came up, with UBCO’s VP Academic Ananya Mukherjee Reed stating its importance in addressing representation among students and faculty. Despite this, administrators did not commit to any change.
With the EIO announcing today it would advocate a Black studies program, panellists took questions about faculty representation. Mukherjee Reed said curriculum changes are a starting point.
“There are two ways of doing it. One is creating areas like a Black studies program which will attract Black scholars,” she said. “But the bigger challenge, sometimes, is in recruiting diverse scholars in every discipline.”
Yet as Students’ Union Okanagan President Ali Poostizadeh rounded off the panel with his experiences with racism, many audience questions were left unanswered during the one-and-a-half hour session. Beyond the event, it is still unclear how and when UBC will follow through on its commitments to anti-racist action.
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