Diversity Equity and Inclusion Wont Work Without Antiracism

[Music]

i’m here today to talk about the most

serious problem facing higher education

there are no easy answers no quick fixes

and absolutely no

all you have to do is just explanations

i’m here today to talk about how racism

is so

deeply embedded in the structures and

practices of higher education

that it’s invisible and its most

injurious impacts

on minoritized faculty staff and

students

look normal but first a story

i’m going to tell you about a student

who used to frequent the center i used

to lead

more about that center later maria not

her name

was a new american who had come to this

country when she was a young child

maria used to drop by my office often to

talk about

how much she loved villanova and

learning you see when she first came to

this country she didn’t speak

english very well so she studied hard

and ultimately was able to secure a spot

for herself

in the most prestigious charter school

in her neighborhood

and it was there that she developed her

love of science and determined that she

was going to be a scientist

and as she told me and everybody in the

center

she graduated number one in her class

now maria was supposed to have an

appointment to come and see me

but that never stopped her she

frequently burst into my office

to tell me the good news of her day

however

as time went on i began to see her

less and less until finally toward the

end of her second year

she dragged into my office and said she

wanted to ask me a question

i could tell that this was no easy

question

i asked her to sit down but instead she

stood in front of my desk

with her fists balled up and said why

did they lie to me dr nance

they told me i was smart but i’m not

why did they lie maria had just been

told that she needed to leave her major

and select a less

demanding one maria’s sense of betrayal

was because she had done

everything she was supposed to do

through elementary school and high

school

she had taken every course she had

studied hard

she had even taken the most demanding

courses in her discipline

she’d gotten into villanova

and into the science major of her dreams

but if she stood

before me that day i could see the dream

dying in her eyes

it is maria’s haunting question that

brings me here today

even though there are no more

hate-filled name-calling crowds shouting

at students like

james meredith or the little rock nine

racism

that existed on our campuses back then

is still there

we see that the biggest

problem here is racism and the

inequities it produces

and the solution is equity

and anti-racism my name is terry nance

i’ve been in villanova for more than 40

years

and in that time i’ve been a faculty

member a department chair and an

administrator

in student life and now in the office of

diversity equity and inclusion

over the years colleges and universities

have worked

to produce equity and opportunity for

minoritized students

though much has changed too much has

remained

the same we need change a change that

recognizes the role

of race in the institution

so let’s get started there’s no better

way to start them with a definition

and this one comes from professor ibram

x kendi

who defines racism as the marriage

between

racist policies and racist ideas

that produce and normalize racial

inequities

so let’s take that part just a little

bit a racist policy

is any policy that maintains racial

inequities

a racist idea is any notion that

supports

the idea that one group is superior and

another group

inferior and finally racial inequity

is when any two racial groups

are not standing on approximately equal

ground

so what does that look like in higher ed

well

let’s take it this way let’s suppose all

people are born with

basically the same human qualities so

then

why is it normal that in higher

education

according to the chronicle on higher

education that black enrollment reached

its peak in 2010

and has declined by more than 13 percent

why is it normal in higher education

that just over half of black and latin

students

graduate in six years as opposed to 70

percent of white students

and why is it normal that

with a diploma in hand black students

will earn

15 percent less and be two-thirds more

likely

to be unemployed well the answer is that

it is

not normal but because we have taken it

to be that way

the following facts are also true one

year out

black graduates median income

thirty six thousand dollars white

students

forty thousand dollars now that’s a four

thousand dollar

difference once you hold on to that fact

now while they were in school

86 percent of black students took out

loans

compared to 67 of white

students and the debt load of black

students

thirty seven thousand dollars the debt

load for white students

thirty one thousand dollars so that four

thousand dollar salary difference i

talked about before

is much greater and imagine what that is

over time

faced with data like these american

council and education president ted

mitchell said

communities of color have made great

educational headway

over the last several decades but we

must maintain focus substantial

and persistent inequities remain

if we think we’re going to be able to

address

those substantial and persistent

inequities

with diversity solutions we are wrong we

must confront

challenge and eliminate the racial

inequities that lie at the heart

of the major problems in higher

education today

now no problem this big can be handled

without a real

sense of the big picture and for that

i’m going to give you the an iceberg

an iceberg of racism in higher education

now if you look above the line

are racial inequities and these i have

already talked about and will talk about

later

they are provable we can’t quantify them

we know they exist but what lies below

the water line are the causes of those

racial inequities

and that’s what we need to figure out

now i’m going to leave this slide up

as we go through the next section of

examples

now i want you to remember though our

definition of racism

right that it was racist policies plus

race id racist ideas that combine to

produce

racial inequities that appear normal

have you ever wondered why colleges and

universities

are still relying on a standardized exam

that has for years not

fairly evaluated the talents

of low-income black and minoritized

students

have you ever noticed the appalling lack

of faculty of color

on college campuses across the country

have you ever noticed the small number

of black and latin students in sciences

and stem disciplines

and have you ever thought

about the number of black and

minoritized students

who either drop out or are forced

out of disciplines from which they might

secure a high-paying job immediately

after graduation

and into disciplines that will not

afford them the same security

well even if we didn’t notice we might

have just said

just happens that way no

decisions were made and though those

decisions were not

meant to have race-based

impacts inequities exist

unless we take seriously the demands we

heard

so clearly this past summer of racial

reckoning

then we will face another 40 years

of minimum gain and maximum frustration

anger from our students who demographic

profile does not match the majority

race in america is a problem

and for too long diversity

solutions have burdened those in the

institution

without the position or power to

sufficiently deal with them

too often when senior white officials or

faculty

hear about the indignities suffered by

minoritized members of their community

they express

shock and surprise such

excuses are far from

acceptable especially to people who have

been

suffering these kinds of daily

assaults it is though

their excuses are a complicit agreement

that racism exists and should be

tolerated because it’s not worth

significant intention there must be a

way

that everyone in the institution

realize the impact of racism

we must be able to see race

and call its name and i’ll begin with me

when i first became an administrator i

had the wonderful opportunity of leading

the center for multicultural affairs our

job

was to make sure that black and

minoritized students

were fairly admitted into the

institution

and that they were given every

opportunity to succeed

and graduate ready to take on the future

and we did that

we had retention counseling we had

subject area tutoring

and lending library and so many

resources for our students i’m proud of

what we were able to accomplish

now maria took full advantage

of the subject area tutoring she saw her

counselor regularly

and took so many of our self-help

courses

but it was not enough you see

the diversity solution was to

make the students ready for the

institution

but through the lens of anti-racism

we’re forced to ask if so much was done

to accommodate the students to the

institution

how much did the institution change

to accommodate the students now i’m not

asking anyone to lower standards

or not teach students what they need to

know but i

am saying we need to notice who’s

learning

and who’s not and make the change for

too

long in higher education we have used

the

veil of academic excellence to shield us

from the demographically changing

student body in front of us

to use a business analogy which we

absolutely hate in higher education

it is though we are looking at our 2021

students exactly the same as we looked

at our students 20 and 30 years ago

now in business that wouldn’t happen but

in higher education we call our

reluctance to change tradition

and blame the students for not being

able to keep up

maria wanted to learn instead of finding

out what she could learn

we told her what she didn’t learn there

are

thousands of maria’s in higher education

today

playing an educational game that is

rigged

against them it is time for the game

to change now it’s not only in the

classroom we need to be aware

of racism but also in our policies

let’s take the policy of requiring a

certain gpa to get into a major

well for black and minoritized students

many of whom may come from

under-resourced and

under-funded schools the academic

standards of

of a college like villanova are daunting

now we have great evidence to show that

these students

make up the difference and graduate

just fine however initially

these students as a group are denied

an educational opportunity because

of pre-existing racial disparities

so the policy is logical

the impact is racist we need to find a

more equitable

anti-racist solution now

it’s not just faculty and staff who need

to be aware of racism

students do too so let me give you one

last example

four years black and minority students

have complained

that they haven’t been able to access

the most prestigious clubs and

organizations in villanova

now it’s not so much the overt racism

here but a subtler form of racism that

privileges certain kinds of

socio-cultural experiences

knowledge and skills let’s take this

example

the student is asked the question talk

about your

best summer vacation well that question

presumes that you’ve had a summer

vacation or

you’ve had experiences that you can talk

about so at a high level

the problem here is not with the

students applying

but rather the limitation is on the part

of the student leaders who have created

a

complex intercultural situation that

they really

are unaware of so the solution

is recognize that there’s a problem and

next

be able to see and talk about race

now as i move to my conclusion i must

end with this very emphatic point

it is not the responsibility of

one person or one office in the

university

to address issues of racism

we all have a responsibility

whether it’s leading faculty searches

designing a course

or deciding whom to include in our study

groups

we all have a role to play we

begin to eliminate racism when we

make racism our problem

what happened to maria is in the past

but in the future

we need to see our students not just as

diverse but

rather as villanovans deserving of the

best

equitable education we have to offer

now in villanova we claim community as a

very special value to us

and as english majors around the world

will go crazy when i say

community is not just a noun to me

it is an active verb it is what we do

we can make villanova more welcoming

and more just by confronting issues of

racism

and inequity with the truth and love

we also value it is time

for us all to shoulder the

responsibilities of anti-racism

diversity has done its work now

it’s time for us to do ours