Category: Racial Justice

Dear Fellow Patriots:

This has been an awful week for justice. We end it without justice for Breonna Taylor. We end it without Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. And we end it with an ominous feeling surrounding next month’s election, regardless of who wins.

If you are feeling some terrible mix of trauma, anxiety, anger, and hopelessness, you are not alone and there is nothing wrong with that. I feel them, too. This is somewhat normal given the challenges and uncertainties that lie ahead.

It truly has been a disappointing week. We cannot change that. But we cannot afford to give into it, either. In my most difficult times, when I have faced my most significant failures, I have learned to transform my failures and disappointment into fuel, and that fuel into action.

So, let’s talk action.

Over the next few weeks and months, you will see a series of initiatives and programs related to inclusive excellence at Mason. I am asking all of you to get engaged and get involved, as your first task is one of learning and understanding. Toward that end, I am dedicating the first Freedom and Learning Forum of my presidency to a forum on racial justice and inclusion. We need a community conversation – to hear each other, and to speak the full truth about where members of this community remain marginalized, threatened, or traumatized by the current state of affairs. We simply have to get it out on the table. Stay tuned for announcements on when and how this forum will occur.

The Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence that I appointed last month is beginning to take action. The group met again today, and is working at full speed to map out its comprehensive plan to examine George Mason University in order to remake it into an exemplar of anti-racism and inclusive excellence. While there is not much for the eye to see on their progress at this point, know that there are more than 100 individuals hard at work on this initiative. The systemic racism that is preventing the administration of justice for the murder of Breonna Taylor underscores how vital the work of this task force remains.

In addition to learning and engaging as much as you can, please make the commitment to VOTE: While it may sound like a cliché, the closer we get to November 3^rd, the more I realize that this is the most consequential election of our time. Election Day is in 38 days, but we can now vote early if we wish. If you are not registered to vote, or if your registration is not current, you have until October 13 to register. You can do so online with the Virginia Department of Elections. If you are registered, you can vote early or absentee if you do not want to wait until Election Day. Whatever your circumstances are: raise your voice with your vote, and make sure every eligible voter around you does the same.

And finally, we all need to take care of ourselves and each other. Feelings of anxiousness, anger, or anxiety are rampant. And they can easily be amplified by the isolation brought on by the pandemic. Seek out help if you need it, and seek the company of those whom you care about. As bad as this week has been, next week – and every “next week” that will follow – gives us renewed hope and opportunity to make things better.

This weekend, rest and be well. Next week, Patriots, we get back to work.

Sincerely,

Gregory Washington
President

 

Dr. Washington announces Presidential Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence from George Mason University on Vimeo.

Hello Fellow Patriots,

In the days that followed the murder of George Floyd, I sent you a message that promised action to address racial inequities that persist here at George Mason University.

As I enter my fourth week as president, I want to share with you the actions we will begin to take, as a community of Patriots.

George Mason University enters this national conversation with an admirable track record as a pace-setter of action for racial justice, and for truth-telling about our own past.

We are proud to draw upon the expertise of

• The Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center, one of the first of its kind in the nation.
• The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, one of the nation’s few schools dedicated to social justice and peace, and one of the very best.
• The Enslaved People of George Mason research and memorial project, the ground-breaking undertaking by our own faculty and students to tell the full truth of our university’s namesake so that we may learn and grow from it.
• And of course, we take pride in hosting Virginia’s largest and most diverse university student body, with a majority of our students representing communities of color, and our Black student population in particular recognized as among the nation’s top academic performers.

These are just some of the many examples of excellence and inclusion around racial justice that the Mason community has undertaken. They make us proud.

But we have work to do if we are to ensure that every student, faculty, and staff member is welcomed and respected as a full equal in this community of learning.

And the uncomfortable truth is not everyone at Mason feels equal, or is treated equally.

So, today I am creating the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence, and giving its members some big assignments.

• We need to know where systems, practices, and traditions of racial bias exist at George Mason University so that we may eradicate them.
• We must build intentional systems and standards of anti-racism that will keep racial injustices from regenerating.
• I want George Mason University to emerge from this exercise as a local, regional, and national beacon for the advancement of anti-racism, reconciliation, and healing.

This task force will have a broad focus, with particular areas of emphasis including short-term and long-term improvements to how we approach:

• Curriculum and Pedagogy
• Campus and Community Engagement
• University Policies and Practices
• Research
• Training and Development

The task force will comprise many of Mason’s luminaries in racial justice, who will be joined by national experts in this topic. Members will be announced over the course of the coming weeks, and they will represent the full diversity of George Mason University, including racial, ethnic, gender, sexual identity, and religious identity.

The recommendations that we act upon will be incorporated into the university’s planning and budgeting process to ensure they have the priority and resources to take root and flourish. I am not interested in reports that sit on a shelf, only to collect dust.

Many reforms at Mason will require thoughtful consideration over time by the task force and university leadership. Others are obvious, overdue, and simply require executive leadership.

So, in keeping with my pledge to deliver actions and not just words, I am announcing immediate steps that we are taking to advance systemic and cultural anti-racism at George Mason University.

The many steps that we have identified are available in their entirety on my website, president.gmu.edu. The categories of immediate steps we are taking include:

Policing

In addition to state-mandated anti-racism training for all police personnel, we will convert the existing Community Police Council into a Police Advisory Board that actively monitors the nature of police activity and reports its findings to me.

University Policies­

A number of university policies and practices that carry racist vestiges in their practices will be examined and/or curtailed, including:

• Faculty salary equity – We will complete and act upon a faculty salary equity review and work with the schools and colleges toward correcting any issues over a three-year period.
• Inclusive excellence planning – At the college and school level, we will establish Inclusive Excellence Plans that articulate the vision and definition of anti-racism and inclusiveness for that unit. The task force will develop a metric-driven template for units to use.
• Implicit bias training – Mason will establish an Inclusive Excellence Certificate Program that certifies that the schools and colleges have completed Implicit Bias Training and have established Inclusive Excellence Plans.
• Implicit bias recognition in faculty promotion and tenure – We will develop specific recommendations for the renewal, promotion, and tenure processes that address implicit bias, discrimination, and other equity issues (e.g., invisible and uncredited labor) to support faculty of color and women in their professional work.
• Equity Advisors in every academic department – Equity Advisors are senior faculty members, appointed as Faculty Assistant to the Dean in their respective schools. Equity Advisors participate in faculty recruiting by approving search committee short lists and strategies and raising awareness of best practices. Additionally, they organize faculty development programs, with both formal and informal mentoring, and address individual issues raised by women and faculty from underrepresented groups.
• Recognizing and rewarding adversity barriers in promotion and tenure – We will develop specific mechanisms in the promotion and tenure process that recognize the invisible and uncredited emotional labor that people of color expend to learn, teach, discover, and work on campus.

Racial Trauma and Healing

• We will increase the support provided students, faculty, and staff through Mason’s Counseling and Psychological Services for students, and Human Resources for faculty and staff.

Curriculum/Pedagogy

• We will finalize development and implementation of required diversity, inclusion, and well-being coursework.
• We will require an anti-racism statement on all syllabi.

Buildings and Grounds

• We will convene the University Naming Committee to evaluate names of university buildings and memorials to ensure they align with the university’s stated mission to serve as an “academic community committed to creating a more just, free, and prosperous world.”

Community Engagement

• We will grow our K-12 and community college partnerships by 50 percent, and become a true partner in the development of our region.
• We will establish a lecture series on anti-racism and inclusive excellence to establish a collective consciousness among the campus community.

Resource Commitments:

• We will identify associated budget to achieve above immediate actions, beginning with an initial $5 million commitment over three years to strengthen initiatives already underway and to fund critical priorities that need immediate attention.
• We will identify an Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center.

Leadership in an anti-racism environment demands that we recognize how our history has shaped our view of the world and how our own actions can reshape it.

My vision is nothing short of establishing George Mason University as a national exemplar of anti-racism and inclusive excellence in action. Given the considerable head start we have on most of our sister institutions in the United States, this is a vision we can realize.

So, Patriots, let’s get to work.

Gregory Washington
President

This is a time of sorrow, of anger, of introspection, of discomfort, of activism. As we confront anti-black racism in the wake of the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others, Women and Gender Studies reaffirms our collective mission to understand and address social inequities. We mourn and march and commit to the work of social justice collectively. We are not all experiencing this the same way. For some of us racism is a daily and familiar experience while others of us must interrogate our own racism and complicity in oppression. Women and Gender Studies has been articulating these concerns through academics, advocacy, and support, and we have more work to do. Black women have fundamentally shaped gender activism and critique from the very beginning of modern feminism. Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, Audre Lorde, Bernice Johnson Reagon, bell hooks, Barbara Smith, Ntozake Shange, Anita Hill, Patricia Hill-Collins, Cheryl Dunye, Dorothy Roberts, Janet Mock, Sybrina Fulton, and many others have challenged those practices that, to quote Kimberlé Crenshaw, “relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling.” Critical tools like intersectionality were developed to name blindness and oppression within the most visible articulations of feminism and women’s studies and they remain powerful because that critique is still necessary. Through introspection and advocacy we will work for institutional change here and in the world. The university is one place where we can make this change as we hire faculty, develop curricula, and reform academic and institutional policies. We who are faculty and staff prepare our students to make changes in those institutions that they will shape outside the university, and we must listen when they in turn hold us accountable and make us better.

In community,
Tamara Harvey, Interim Director of Women and Gender Studies
David Powers Corwin, Associate Director of Women and Gender Studies
and our core faculty in Women and Gender Studies

 

The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.