Black student leaders call on UNC officials to listen to these safety and equity demands
UNC-Chapel Hill student leaders are again asking the university to make the campus safer for Black students, with eight specific actions that can be implemented for the fall semester.
Members of the Black Student Movement announced their top priorities at a press conference at the Sonja Haynes Center for Black Culture and History on Wednesday. The demands are focused on safety and equity.
“Blackness is not viewed by this university outside of a lens of profitability,” UNC-CH junior Julia Clark said. “Black students and Black faculty are systematically abused and exploited by the very institution profiting from their work.”
Clark is the vice president of the Black Student Movement on campus.
Black student leaders organized the news conference Wednesday to discuss journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’s decision to decline UNC-CH’s offer as the Knight Chair for Race and Investigative Journalism with tenure. They congratulated her on her appointment at Howard University and for having the strength to say no to UNC-CH.
“We applaud her decision to teach at a university where Blackness is celebrated, instead of barely tolerated,” BSM President Taliajah “Teddy” Vann said.
Student priorities
“Our demands of this university are designed to protect the Black community at UNC, as well as to end the systemic oppression and exploitation of our community,” Clark said.
The demands for safety:
▪ Incorporate the student-generated anti-racist alerts into the Carolina Alert system to notify students.
▪ Terminate the employment of acting police chief Rahsheem Holland, who forcefully shoved Black students out of a recent UNC Board of Trustees meeting.
▪ And hire permanent, full-time Black counselors trained in racial trauma and increase Black staff members in Title IX and the Women’s Center.
The demands for equity:
▪ Use a metric-driven recruitment strategy for Black faculty and reinstatement of VITAE program for more diverse hires.
▪ Publish equity scorecards for university departments that show data on student enrollment, discrimination complaints and why Black employees are leaving.
▪ Create a permanent memorial for James Cates, a 22-year-old Black student who was killed on campus in 1970.
▪ Restore and contextualize the Unsung Founders Memorial on campus.
▪ Put information on all syllabi about grade appeal and the Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office, which handles issues of harassment and discrimination
UNC-CH senior De’Ivyion Drew, representing the Campus Safety Commission, supported these solutions that were created by Black students and employees.
“This is the minimum of an environment where success is possible,” Drew said.
Drew also described the cycle of inaction with these commissions because of staff turnover, a lack of access to decision-making power and the refusal of campus administrators to use resources to implement recommended changes.
‘We are feeling betrayed’
Members of the Black Student Movement, Carolina Black Caucus and the Black Graduate and Professional Student Association also spoke about the future of UNC’s Black community.
Jaci Field said right now, the relationship between the university and Black faculty, staff and students is broken. Field is the co-chair of the Carolina Black Caucus Advocacy committee.
“I stand here today Black at UNC,” Field said. “We come to you today united in our pain, united in our lack of trust. And we are feeling betrayed.”
The university has a unique opportunity to get it right, she said, and real change requires bold, courageous and transformational leadership. She called on the chancellor, trustees and system office and Board of Governors to listen to the prioritized demands.
“Hear them,” Field said.
The students plan to meet with UNC-CH trustees Gene Davis and Ralph Meekins on Thursday to discuss the demands and what the board can do. That meeting was set up after the trustees meeting on Hannah-Jones’s tenure.
Vann said while she appreciates the sentiment and their commitment, ”nothing is meaningful but action.”
A response from the chancellor
Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said in a statement that he’s grateful for the continued advocacy of the activist groups and “their voices have been vital throughout the history of Carolina.”
He’s reviewed their requested actions and is putting together a Campus Climate Plan to address their concerns, he said.
Dr. Rumay Alexander, chair of the Faculty Council’s Diversity and Community Committee, and Amy Johnson, vice chancellor for student affairs, will lead the effort. And the new vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, Leah Cox, will take over when she starts work later this month.
Guskiewicz also acknowledged the “questions and concerns” about officers’ actions at the recent board meeting. He said Vice Chancellor of Institutional Integrity and Risk Management George Battle will coordinate an external review of officers’ body camera footage from the incident.
This story was originally published July 7, 2021 at 3:26 PM with the headline "Black student leaders call on UNC officials to listen to these safety and equity demands."
