WITHDRAWN RCDC Research Roots & Wings Roundtable II: Strategies for Supporting Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Scholarship: Reimagining Institutional Systems and Structures

The tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor have once again exposed how structural racism is deeply rooted in American society, and the role of police violence as a form of institutionalized racism. The same racist systems and structures that predate the pandemic are in many ways responsible for the elevated rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths among communities comprised of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Equally concerning, the pandemic has exacerbated the xenophobia and bigotry that many BIPOC communities have always experienced. For example, violent attacks on Asians and Asian-Americans have increased exponentially since the start of the pandemic. These intertwined crises and the protests that ensued have brought about a forced reckoning among American social institutions--including colleges and universities. Substantive and multi-pronged efforts have to be made to meaningfully redress systemic racism in our communities.

Within the academic community, the impact of racism has historically limited the representation of BIPOC faculty and undervalued their scholarship. Institutions of higher education have a critical opportunity to support anti-racist pedagogy and scholarship, to understand the ways in which white supremacy and structural racism operates both within and beyond higher education, recognize how higher education has been complicit in reinforcing and perpetuating institutionalized forms of racism, and reforming institutional policies and practices to root out systemic racism within our institutions.

Academic institutions across the nation have issued solidarity statements and started to initiate efforts to address institutionalized racism that impact students, staff, and faculty of color. However, despite the progress made, there are still many gaps that need to be addressed in order to produce demonstrable and structural changes that are meaningful and sustainable. Given our mission of fighting for a socially and racially just society, social work scholars are uniquely positioned to be at the forefront of these efforts and to be leaders in this area and model and document concrete tools and policies that can lead to genuinely equitable and inclusive environments for BIPOC faculty and support anti-racist research practices and methodologies.

This roundtable will bring together a group of academics at various stages of their careers and administrative roles to talk about their experiences of addressing systemic racism within their institutions and in their scholarship. Importantly, the roundtable discussion will be designed to yield actionable strategies that we can adopt to promote and reward ethical anti-racist policies and to penalize systemic racism in hiring, admissions, and promotion practices.

In particular, panelists will discuss:

1. The challenges experienced by racial and ethnic minorities in seeking tenure and promotion, including the most common fears and myths that are often institutionally reproduced. 2. The critical role of mentoring and peer support in meaningfully cultivating diversity, inclusiveness, and anti-racist scholarship in academia. 3. Development of funding sources for anti-racist scholarship and research, and ways to support and incentivize such research. 4. Discuss ways to communicate the impact of anti-racist scholarship, since the impact of anti-racist scholarship often might not be captured by traditional metrics (e.g., citations; h-index).