Racism (On Campus) is a Public Health Crisis
& professors are often part of the problem
Edit: when I wrote this on the way to the airport this morning, I did not know about the tragic suicide at the Ohio State House of 23 year old Black Lives Matter activist MarShawn McCarrell. Among his last words were, “If we don’t have to live through hell to get to heaven.” My thoughts are with his family and friends especially at this time, and I hope that his death teaches everyone who didn’t know it the fierce urgency of now.
As a bachelors and masters degree holder in astronomy and a bachelors, masters and PhD degree holder in physics, I believe in collecting facts, exploring them and looking for patterns. As a scientist, one pattern I’ve observed is that fellow astronomy and physics degree holders often don’t believe that the principles of data collection and pattern detection extend beyond the circumscribed box of whatever their teachers and mentors told them science was. Often this means that they refuse to take seriously any data that people of color might know about being people of color simply because unlike the objects we study in the physical sciences, we do not all have access to the same point of view on the data.
This pattern of ignoring data does make me wonder about fellow scientists’ commitment to science, given that social science study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study captures patterns which prove that racism isn’t just a matter of intellectual debate or police shootings but also an externally imposed chronic health problem with long term psychological and physiological impact for anyone experiencing it. (Racism, by the way, is (un)intentional prejudice + power, so if you fall within the North American tent of whiteness — which is not just a phenotypic category — no, you’re not experiencing racism.) In other words, science confirms for us over and over again that the broader community should be listening to people of color when we say racism isn’t just “people getting offended” but is actually real damage that is shortening lives.
Let’s take for example a recent incident involving social scientist Erika Christakis. She’s a professor and residential college master at Yale University who in the fall sent an email to her college quibbling with Yale College’s recommendations that students choose Halloween costumes that were not racist (among other things). There was significant backlash, which Christakis and her supporters complained sorely and publicly about, even suggesting her constitutional and academic freedoms were being violated. They apparently don’t understand the first amendment or her responsibilities as master.
First, Yale College isn’t a government entity, so first amendment rights don’t apply. Further, academic freedom doesn’t protect students’ Halloween costumes or prevent the college from suggesting that people behave decently. It also doesn’t protect Christakis from hearing what other people thought of her ideas, which she certainly did (and which she didn’t think was fair)!
Perhaps more importantly than whether she understands the Constitution, Christakis didn’t appreciate her professional duty — for which she is paid in food and housing — to the students in her college who might be the targets of offensive Halloween costumes. She didn’t think about the fact that where they sleep and eat should be as safe a space as possible because for example it is already hard to be Black on campus. Black graduate students regularly experience the microaggressions such as being mistaken for the janitor and asked by white colleagues to clean up their messes, literally. Moreover, unlike their white classmates, non-white students face undue criminalization while walking down the street. She didn’t understand that as college co-master, her job is to help the students be successful in their pursuits. And that actually means being anti-racist since racism is a real, harmful phenomenon that sometimes gets people killed and other times just slowly destroys their hearts and minds, which makes success difficult.
So, let’s be clear: Erika Christakis may be an excellent scholar in her field of expertise. But she is not qualified to be a house master or co-master because she does not care to do the work of making marginalized students in her residential college feel at home. It seems she was more concerned about coddling white students who want the right not to be asked to consider their neighbor’s feelings.
Why make an example of her now? Friday there was an unreasonably favorable New York Times article about Christakis because she’s got a new book coming out. The book actually sounds interesting, although given her commentary about race in the past, I’m almost certain she screwed up any discussions about race and/or has limited ability to study the intersection of her work with race. I suspect her racism limits her ability to be the best possible scholar.
But that’s a problem for her and people in her field, and it’s not really any of my business. What is my business though is the climate she creates for Black students and other marginalized students, some of whom I mentor. The email she wrote was toxic and literally harmed the health of marginalized students who received it.
Part of what’s extraordinary about the NYT article is the title: “Yale Educator Recounts ‘Painful Experience’ of Halloween Email Furor.” Yes, making a mistake is painful. But the email Christakis sent out basically said that the pain of being turned into a Halloween costume didn’t matter as much as the rights of people who wanted to turn other people into a Halloween costume.
Why should we care about Christakis’s pain when she doesn’t care about the pain of students that families from around the world have entrusted into her care?
This literally means that Black lives matter less to Christakis than protecting the ability of privileged students to treat other people’s cultures and identities like they are costumes to take on and off. I can’t imagine being that cold. Devaluing the health of Black students is cold, mean and profoundly racist. I hope Christakis changes her views. In the meantime, I hope she is removed as co-master of Silliman College. Her views disqualify her from the job as co-master, which is not to be a good co-master for some of the students, but to be a good one for all of them.
And that is broadly true: if a professor is in a position to impact the health and well-being of students and they are using that to purvey physically and psychologically harmful, discriminatory practices and ideas, they should be removed from the position allowing them to have that impact. And professors who won’t cause that kind of harm — i.e. Black trans and cis women professors who are committed to the success of marginalized students — should be hired. North American universities and colleges (yes, I’m looking at you too Canada) have traditionally hired faculty with almost zero consideration for how those faculty will engage with students from underrepresented and marginalized communities. This is a dangerous hiring practice that directly harms the life opportunities and the health of marginalized students.
As for Erika Christakis, she’s human, so I’m inclined to be empathetic. I’m willing to imagine she is a warm person who made a very serious mistake. I’m willing to imagine that she is a true scholar who is always interested in acknowledging what she doesn’t know and in learning more. I’m willing to imagine she could be the kind of person who can admit she is wrong and/or doesn’t know how to create a healthy environment for all students.
But whether or not she is willing to do any of those things, she’s clearly not currently qualified to do her job as a steward for student health and well-being. Yale needs to fire her from that particular job. It’s time for Yale and other pedagogical institutions to re-envision themselves as a universities and colleges that don’t just fully serve rich white students but also institutions that fully serve every single student on campus.
Until then, #BlackOnCampus will continue to fight for equitable treatment and opportunities like their lives depend on it because they know — and scientific research backs them up — that their lives do depend on it.
