Incidents of Racism at UC Berkeley: Testimony of Ron Williams
Good evening. My name is Ron Williams. I’m a representative of the Black Graduate Students Association, and I’ve prepared a statement regarding the hostile climate for African American students at UC Berkeley.
Listening to what was said so far today reminds me that we all know and experience these injustices and racism and discrimination and excesses here at the University, but also, in America and society as a whole.
Countee Cullen, in a poem he wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, talked about an experience he had, he called an “Incident.” He said:
“Once riding in Old Baltimore/ Heart-filled, head-filled with glee/I saw a Baltimorean/Keep looking straight at me./ Now, I was eight and fairly small/ And he was no whit bigger/ And so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue,/and called me “Nigger.”/I saw the whole of Baltimore, from May until December,/Of all the things that happened there,/That’s all that I remember./
I think we need, on behalf of the BGSA, we want to examine some of the facts regarding the issues affecting African Americans here.
The first problem we identified is: Since its implementation in 1998, the ban on affirmative action in the State of California, and consequently the University of California, has had a detrimental impact on the numbers of African American students enrolled at the University's 10 campuses; in particular, the UC Berkeley campus.
Problem: The negative impact of the affirmative action ban has impacted the experience of African American students, not only in terms of raw numbers, but in terms of overall quality of life as well, as we could see from the testimony provided previous to me.
Problem: As recently as fall 2004, African American students comprised only a 3.4% of students at UC Berkeley or, in raw numbers, 1,149 students. This represented a catastrophic decline from 1996, pre-affirmative action ban, when African Americans made up 5.1% of the student body, or in raw numbers, 1,526 students.
While the overall enrollment at the University has certainly increased, why is it that the number and percentage of African American students has decreased?
Problem: More than ever before, African American students are reporting instances of hostility exhibited towards them during the course of their time at Berkeley. As we saw, a witness, Erika Williams, who just presented, black graduate students continue to face challenges, both overt and covert, to their very presence on the campus.
For example, one student recently reported at a general body meeting of the Black Graduate Student Association that while on campus one day, she was heckled by two white men who persisted in shouting obscenities and racial slurs, including the "N" word.
Another student, complained at a different meeting that his research interests had been devalued, and that’s huge for a graduate student. And his voice was marginalized when, during a required first-year seminar, a professor agreed with a non-minority graduate student that it was unnecessary to discuss race, even though race was a central part of the African American student's research agenda and one of the primary reasons he came to UC Berkeley.
Many African American graduate students report that what contributes to their feelings of isolation and hostility on this campus parallel the experience of one student, who noted instances where 1) he was the only African American student in the department; 2) he was the only African American student in all of his classes, including grad seminars and a 100-student undergraduate lecture; 3) when trying to get students to help in his department, to help reach out to people of color in recruiting, received responses such as, "We have to be careful not to lower standards," and, "We want to be careful about getting people's hopes up." 4) The faculty discussed at length whether a particular African American candidate was capable of handling our curriculum, based on GRE scores, while having no such discussion concerning white students, even when arguing for admitting one with lower scores than the African American applicant. 5) The department was trying to address racial diversity by bringing on white students to discuss issues of race.
Problem: The decrease in the number of African American undergraduates attending UC Berkeley adversely affects the size of the applicant pool for our graduate schools, and graduate programs around the nation. In addition, large amounts of debt incurred during the undergraduate career dissuade many African American students from continuing their education past a baccalaureate degree.
As a result, many graduate departments report that they sorely lack African American applicants in their masters and doctoral programs.
Problem: There are too few African American faculty on campus. The existence of African American faculty is critical to the initial recruitment, application, admission, retention, and graduation of African American graduate students, regardless of their fields of study.
We last want to pose a set of solutions; and here they are.
Solution: With the objective of increasing enrollment of African American students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, we demand that the University undertake new initiatives to admit, recruit, retain, and graduate African American students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Solution: We demand the University be accountable for overt and covert forms of racism. We want the University to change the conditions that allow these forms of racism to operate unchecked. We need to focus not only on improving and addressing the hostile climate exhibited towards students in formal policy, but we also need to address racism in people’s hearts.
Solution: In support of admitting African American graduate students, we demand that the University hire a full-time diversity coordinator for every academic department. This person must be given adequate financial resources to support an active campaign designed to increase the number of African American applicants to UC Berkeley's graduate programs. This additional funding can be used to provide resources for current black graduate students, on a rotating schedule, to travel, with diversity coordinators, to various universities to encourage black students to apply for admission to Berkeley's graduate programs.
Solution: In support of the recruitment, retention and graduation of African American graduate students, we demand that the University guarantee that every African American student offered admission to one of the University's graduate programs is offered full fellowship support through graduation. Fellowship stipends for African American students should be set at a minimum of $17,000 per academic year, equal to that of the already-existing Chancellor’s Pre-doctoral Opportunity Fellowship.
Solution: In addition, we demand that the University increase the funding provided to the Graduate Minority Students Project. As recently as 2005, the budget for this program was reduced to a mere $26,000, from the $46,000 it was paid in 2001. We demand that this budget be increased to the amount of $100,000, to demand additional programs, staff, and expenses.
Solution: In support of admitting African American students, we demand that the University conduct a comprehensive review of its admissions policies. UC Berkeley must ensure that admissions officers are doing all that they can within the law to provide educational opportunities for African American students. The objective of this review is to ensure that UC Berkeley, as the so-called flagship school of the University of California, and of public education nationally, does not hide behind the vague and contradictory language of Proposition 209.
Solution: In support of the dire need to increase enrollment of African American students, we demand that the University provide financial incentives for African American students to choose UC Berkeley. Financial incentives should be in the form of need- and merit-based scholarships that will offer substantial support for the duration of the student's study at Berkeley. Scholarships, not loans.
Solution: With the objective of increasing retention rates among African American students, we demand that the University provide additional financial resources to the student-run Black Recruitment and Retention Center. We demand that, while we may be equal to the funding of other offices in the same institutional wing, the University increase BRRC's allocation to the necessary amount needed to support staff salaries and student programs, to finance graduate education. We propose that the BRRC be given funding to coordinate workshops and raise awareness, and other financial resources, such as fellowships and scholarships, and provide African American students with grant-writing skills that they can use in
their professional careers during and after graduate school. Moreover, to explore the complex dynamics of attrition rates of African Americans, the BRRC can utilize funding to conduct research in this area to further understand how to service the African American graduate student population.
That concludes our statement on behalf of the Black Graduate Students Association. Thank you very much for your time.