Students | Photo by Soham Parikh | Edited by Kayli Thompson | The Wright State Guardian
The Racial Equity Task Force was formed in the summer of 2019 in response to racial injustice throughout the United States. Members of Wright State University (WSU) student body, faculty, staff and alumni banded together to form this task force to address racial injustices, discrimination and racial equity within WSU as a whole.
The history
Faculty Senate Vice President Brian Boyd with the help of Faculty President Laura Luehrmann came together last summer to bring racial awareness to campus.
Boyd and Luehrmann spoke with student leaders to hear their opinions and concerns within the student body. After the exchanges, Boyd and Student Government Association (SGA) President Adrian Williams began to craft the Racial Equity Task Force.
“I think it’s common at times to hear things like, ‘well, I’m not going to be political and I’m just going to be a good person, it’ll work itself out’ and the reality is that these inequities exist because systems have been designed to have inequitable outcomes. To fix that, we need to actually take some action,” said Boyd.
The task force sent WSU President Sue Edwards a formal statement on July 31, 2020, describing their intentions and goals for combating racial injustice and inequity within WSU, “We seek to provide meaningful, ongoing interventions against white supremacy institutionally embedded in American life. United as students, faculty, staff, administration, and alumni, the Racial Equity Task Force acknowledges the specific prejudices and intersectional oppressions experienced by students, faculty, and staff of color and will actively pursue pathways for their safety and success.”
According to Boyd, the task force is a combination of students, staff, faculty, administrators and alumni who are working to examine WSU under a critical lens to see whether or not they are addressing racial equity.
There are also subcommittees that were established by the task force to focus on addressing certain issues. There are subcommittees for communication, reaching out to officials and others that handle racial issues within the WSU community such as the rock and bathroom stalls being vandalized with insensitive messages.
Racial equity
The word equity within the Racial Equity Task Force was chosen instead of equality because equality is giving everything or everyone the same treatment.
According to Williams, racial equity is giving individuals the resources and tools that they need to succeed based on their individual needs and backgrounds.
Incidents of racial discrimination, such as the death of George Flyod and Breonna Taylor, have led to movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) in the past year. The WSU community has also had its fair share of racial discrimination within the past year.
Goals and achievements
In Oct. 2020, the Racial Equity Task Force sent a letter to Gov. Mike Dewine asking for him to fill the empty Board of Trustees position with a diverse member who, “already possesses education and experience in addressing structural racism… This is more than a request for appointing a person of color to the board. It is a request to expand the expertise of the Board and to appoint board members who can understand, promote, and advance this work in their role….”
Williams believes that the Racial Equity Task Force will not make changes overnight, but that it will take time for these actions to truly come to fruition.
“Its effect will be felt two to five years down the line and the main goal at the moment is for the governor to hear us and listen to our letter about appointing a diverse member to the Board of Trustees,” said Williams.
According to Luehrmann, the task force also sent a survey to the faculty about what steps they are or are not taking already to address diversity and racial issues in their classroom and their syllabi.
“The goal is to [ensure] every student interested in Wright State all the way up to alumni are given equitable representation within the university, are not susceptible to any insensitive or racial remarks and that the university is proactive in ensuring that the minority experience at Wright State is equitable,” said Williams.
Looking forward
WSU has added the Office of Inclusive Excellence and President’s Council on Inclusive Excellence (PCIE) with the goal to, “advance and sustain an environment of internal equity, diversity, and inclusiveness for all members of the WSU Community by ensuring equal access to employment and educational opportunities; promoting fairness and equity; being respectful, impartial, and non-judgmental.”
“It’s not just the importance of one office, or one person. All of us are responsible for checking our language, privilege and implicit bias that exists,” said Luehrmann.
Students are encouraged to join the Racial Equity Task Force and reach out to Boyd for more information.
