The UConn University Senate voted Monday to pause plans to make an anti-Black racism course a requirement for graduation in response to the Trump administration’s clampdown on colleges to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion courses.
In a 59-10 vote, the senators approved the motion, which included implementing a taskforce to “work with constituents and stakeholders with the university to evaluate and propose a path forward for the Anti-Black Racism course as part of the undergraduate curriculum,” according to the resolution passed.
One alternative to the course presented in the resolution included establishing a requirement for all undergraduate students to complete a one-credit course but with a choice from a set of related courses, “including those that originated as pop up courses, for example those that focus on anti-Asian racism, anti-Muslim racism and antisemitism.”
Robert Day, chair of the Senate Executive Committee, told the Courant Tuesday that federal guidance concerning the course is not the only reason the university chose to pause making it a requirement. He cited other issues including technicalities, funding for the course and that it needed more development.
Day shared his support for the motion Monday, stating to other university senators that it is telling the “world we are not done with this initiative.
“We care for this initiative,” he said. “We have good comments from our student senators and there were good ideas about other things we can do that stay within the spirit of this initial motion. It sounds in my opinion that we are trying to move too fast to our end goals and that we have a committee telling us how to get there, at a pace we can afford with the budget we have seen before us.”
Day said that the vice president of finance did not present a budget that was in the black but in fact was in the red.
“We are trying to do this on a small budget,” he said. “The amended motion allows us to affirm our values to pause the implementation and let the committee guide us forward.”
Andy Zhang, president of the Undergraduate Student Government, said that while he believed in the spirit of the Anti-Black Racism course and what it is trying to teach, he also expressed caution in the current climate.
“I think if we do something like Anti-Black Racism it would draw a lot of attention from the Trump administration and our initiatives around DEI wouldn’t be able to get done,” he said.
Douglas Kaufman, an associate professor of literacy in the Neag School of Education and director of Neag Global Education, and member of the senate, shared concerns about pausing the implementation of making the course a requirement.
“What we are seeing across the board here is a common reaction to authoritarian forces and we have seen this throughout history where people in positions of power who can oppress will commit their forces in order to oppress,” he said. “And one of the lessons that history tells us is people usually end up at the beginning of oppression appeasing the oppressors.”
Referring to the taskforce, Kaufman said committees of these types are “often a way to slow walk something to death.”
Tyler Sowers, ASG Avery Point, an undergraduate representative of the senate, said he disagreed with Kaufman.
“I think especially in the action we are taking in this motion, we are reaffirming our support for this course and that we are reaffirming that this is something that we need but we don’t have a way to do it yet.”
The U.S. Department of Education this past February ordered schools and colleges to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices or risk losing federal funding.
Isaac Kamola, the director of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, said the “Trump administration has mischaracterized campus diversity efforts to create considerable confusion and a very real chilling effect on college campuses.
“The aim is to criminalize the teaching of very real issues facing American society, such as anti-Black racism,” he said. “Forcing faculty to instead teach the revanchist versions of American history preferred by MAGA.”
The Anti-Black Racism course originated from two students who, during a virtual town hall in 2020, noted that the university put resources into creating a one-credit course related to the COVID-19 pandemic but had not “done something similar to address the other pandemic – anti-Black racism,” according to information regarding the course from the Provost’s office. The course was first offered in the fall of 2021.
The one-credit course uses “existing research to describe the foundational history and concepts related to systemic anti-Black racism in the United States,” according to the information on the course.
Alexis Boylan, a professor of art and Africana studies, and a senator, cited concerns with funding the course.
“We have to keep in mind that a budget has to come from somewhere — that is going to be what moves this forward or holds it back,” she said.