Faculty in nearly every department support efforts to make ‘Black Lives Matter’ at UK

We are two University of Kentucky faculty members, and we are adding our voices to calls for UK to take concrete steps towards racial equity. These calls have most recently been issued by our colleagues in African American and Africana Studies (AAAS) and student leaders in the Movement for Black Lives UK (M4BL UK).

In June, both AAAS faculty and M4BL UK sent letters to President Eli Capilouto, naming concrete actions that “would have an immediate impact on racial equity.” In solidarity, we collaborated with AAAS-affiliated faculty Melissa Stein and Frances Henderson to write a public statement of support. Within two days, we collected over 650 signatures from faculty, staff, and graduate students across campus. People were signing so quickly, it was hard to keep up. Signatories came from every single college: the Colleges of Agriculture, Food, and Environment; Arts and Sciences; Business and Economics; Communication and Information; Dentistry; Design; Education; Engineering; Fine Arts; Health Sciences; Law; Medicine; Nursing; Pharmacy; Public Health; and Social Work, as well as the Graduate School, the Libraries, and the Lewis Honors College.

As AAAS Director Anastasia Curwood and M4BL UK member Mariah Kendall wrote in the Herald-Leader, the original AAAS letter and M4BL UK’s demands challenged the university to strengthen anti-racist efforts. In the wake of previous calls, rather than deliver deep structural changes, the university had set up committees and workstreams with no accountability for outcomes.

AAAS’s letter garnered significant media attention, mostly focused on one recommendation: renaming Rupp Arena. However, this recommendation was merely the tenth of ten outlined steps that would “demonstrate that Black lives truly do matter at the University of Kentucky.” M4BL UK’s work has been virtually ignored.

Although it has not yet acted on all of AAAS’s and M4BL UK’s recommendations, the university has made meaningful strides. President Capilouto’s announcement of newly expanded Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts is an important first step. We are heartened by the establishment of and $250,000 in seed funding for the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies. Likewise, we are encouraged that the multi-year “cluster” hiring plan for AAAS faculty, which was put on hold this spring due to COVID, has recommenced. And given the AAAS letter’s emphasis on supporting UK staff, who are disproportionately both people of color and impacted by pandemic-related financial insecurity, we applaud the University’s decision to honor the United Campus Workers of Kentucky’s demand to expand free COVID-19 testing to staff and faculty.

But more work remains. Creating an equitable college experience will require no less than transforming campus climate. Too often Black students are made to feel they do not really belong at the University of Kentucky. They face wide-ranging forms of isolation and lack of understanding, surveillance and hostility from law enforcement, and entrenched patterns of discrimination, dismissal, and condescension. If “our goal is to change a culture,” as President Capilouto recently affirmed, then we must genuinely listen to the experiences of Black students and heed the recommendations of Black student leadership, who offer valuable guidance rooted in lived expertise.

As educators, we believe that campus climate and institutions can only be changed through concrete action. Accountability must include clear directives and metrics for diversity, equity, and inclusion teams to address policing, hate speech, faculty diversity, student support, and other issues raised by AAAS and M4BL UK, as well as a pledge from the administration to implement changes. By taking Black students’ and faculty’s recommendations seriously and acting on them expeditiously, the university will fulfill its mission of “promoting diversity, inclusion, economic development and human well-being” to improve people’s lives. Creating a just and equitable community requires the university to extend its full promise to Black lives. And a more just and equitable community benefits not only Black members, but all members, of the UK community and the Commonwealth as a whole.

We invite UK community members to sign our solidarity statement at https://forms.gle/aeBGQuQNq9zEZc8K7.

Lauren E. Cagle is an assistant professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at UK. Michelle Sizemore is an Associate Professor and director of Undergraduate Studies in the UK English Department.