Groups: UK avoids Rupp Arena name change, ‘real’ action against racism, inequality
Some University of Kentucky faculty and students accuse the administration of not taking seriously their demands to hire more diverse staff, change Rupp Arena’s name, alter campus policing and impose repercussions for racist aggression and discrimination.
The majority-Black faculty of the African-American and Africana studies program also seek guaranteed protection for the jobs of Black staff members — who they say are often disproportionately furloughed; a required course on race and inequality for all UK undergraduates; UK membership in the Universities Studying Slavery collective and a study of the history of racism within the institution; and appointments of more Black employees to leadership positions.
Fifteen percent of UK faculty should be black; currently only 3.7 percent are Black, according to demands sent to UK President Eli Capilouto in late June and posted online Thursday. Additionally, the faculty only count two Black department chairs and only 4.5 percent of administrative, executive and managerial leaders are Black.
The faculty demands came after a student group, Movement for Black Lives University of Kentucky, called for decreased funding for the campus police force, cuts to on-campus patrols and limits on the weapons officers can use.
According to Anastasia Curwood, the director of the AAAS program, and journalism sophomore and Movement for Black Lives leader Mariah Kendell, university administrators met demands from the student group with “hostility and lack of professionalism.” Curwood and Kendall wrote an op-ed published Thursday.
Capilouto has not met with the student or faculty groups, they said. When the student organization “met with senior members of the administration, our direct questions regarding the safety of students were sidestepped. Our concerns of an over-policed campus were met with a PowerPoint presentation of the great job UKPD does,” the op-ed stated.
“The faculty and students who have expressed these concerns are deeply valued members of our community,” UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said in a written statement. “We thank them for their continued passion and commitment to advancing equity at UK. Senior officials have been meeting and corresponding with them to address their specific concerns, which speak forcefully to the systemic and institutional racism that we must thoughtfully and urgently address as a campus. “
Approvals for funds needed for the hiring of new Black faculty have been made and university officials lifted a COVID-19-related hiring pause for the positions, Blanton said. Discussions regarding the start of the Commonwealth Institute of Black Studies — funding for which is a part of the faculty demands — are ongoing.
More actions will be considered by multiple teams created to take on separate aspects of creating a diversity and equity plan that Capilouto and the university outlined weeks ago.
“More must be done. And that is what our process — which hundreds of members of our campus have stepped forward to be part of — is designed to address,” Blanton said. “The work ahead of us is bigger than a plan written down on paper. Rather, we must respond as an institution, now and from this point forward, to be a community that stands against racism and that embraces people as their authentic selves.”
A university panel will be tasked with evaluating the on-campus culture and reconsidering portions of the Student Code of Conduct to reflect a more diverse campus. The university will also create a Percent for Art fund that will take 1 percent from every capital project that costs more than $5 million. Money pooled in the fund will be used to purchase more diverse art.
In mid-June, UK officials said students will be required to take online diversity and inclusion courses before coming onto campus this fall. By December, the university hopes to implement training for faculty members and teacher’s assistants on cultural proficiency and handling classroom discussions on race.
Curwood and Kendall were critical of UK’s proposed plans.
“The action plan is a shell with no goals, metrics, or accountability for the institution and its leadership. It creates the appearance of acting without really acting. It places additional burdens on those who have already been working daily to fight racism at UK. Worst of all, the administration did not consult its world-class Black Studies faculty before announcing the new plan to the UK Board of Trustees,” the two said.
Universities across the country and state have been confronted with student requests for reduced funding for their campus police forces and for more action to ensure the success of Black students, faculty and staff. The movements grew out protests that sprung up after Breonna Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis were killed by police.
The student Movement for Black Lives University of Kentucky also previously demanded the renaming of Rupp arena, along with renaming the Kirwan-Blanding dorm complex — currently being dismantled to make way for a green space — after Taylor, who was once a UK student. Debate has raged for years over whether the commonly revered former UK basketball coach Adolph Rupp was racist. Many have criticized his reluctance to recruit Black players while other teams around the country were integrating.
Movement for Black Lives members, joined by members of the United Campus Workers Union, a vocal union of university workers, met with top administrators via Zoom on July 17, said Khari Gardner, the UK senior who started the student group.
Gardner said he left the meeting feeling “very disappointed and saddened that some of the people in the administration would use a tone like that with us and be what some might consider rude in their discussions.” The groups met with UK Police Chief Joe Monroe, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration and Associate Provost Kirsten Turner, and the groups were shown a presentation on the police department with information that was “all really available on their website.”
He said the administrators largely shot down questions from the groups and raised their voices.
“It was not a tone that felt like they wanted our opinions on things,” Gardner said “It felt like a tone and a situation where it felt like they just wanted us to listen, not ask any more questions, and stop.”
Gardner said he gave the university a two-week deadline — to expire on July 31 — to respond to the group’s demands on campus police. He said he thought that it will take some “escalative action and media attention for them to get their act straight, get their stories together so that we can have change on campus.”
“I’m not appreciative of performative change, I’m not appreciative of being talked down to like I’m some sort of 7-year-old child who doesn’t understand public safety,” Gardner said. “It felt like a meeting where I was disrespected and my colleagues were disrespected all because of their asking of questions on a lack of transparency.”
Curwood and Kendall’s op-ed charges that the university is only interested in symbolic change.
“We hope for a wholesale reconsideration of UK’s priorities regarding ending institutional racism,” their op-ed states. “Given its actions so far, we must conclude that the University is more committed to symbolic rather than real action. We would love to be proven wrong.”
In addition to the steps to address diversity and racial inequality, Capilouto announced in a campuswide email in early June that he was ordering the removal of a controversial campus mural that has been at the center of years of race-related debate. The announcement was met with a lawsuit earlier this month from renowned Kentucky poet and novelist Wendell Berry and his wife, Tanya. The suit seeks an immediate injunction to the university’s plans to take down the mural.
The National Coalition Against Censorship and Karyn Olivier — the Black artist who created a 2018 piece meant to contextualize the mural — said that the university shouldn’t get rid of the 1930s-era Ann Rice O’Hanlon mural that depicts Black workers, possibly slaves, because the mural’s removal would mute Olivier’s accompanying piece “Witness.”
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 5:00 PM.