SIU leaders pledge action, real progress on diversity, inclusion – The Southern

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As the national anthem plays inside Saluki Stadium, SIU cheerleaders Alaysia Brandy (from left), Czarina Tinker and Ariahn Hunt kneel outside of the stadium prior to the 2017 Salukis football game against Youngstown State. SIU leadership, including President Dan Mahony and Athletics Director Liz Jarnigan, are pledging action to make SIU more inclusive.

CARBONDALE Southern Illinois University President Dan Mahony is calling for an exhaustive review of policies, practices and curriculum at all three of the system's campuses in an effort to upend systemic racism and identify new ways to bolster diversity and inclusion.

Further, in a recent letter to the SIU community last week, he said that every student who graduates must leave with an understanding of systemic racism and its impact.

Our graduates must be prepared to have a positive impact on our society and that is not possible without this understanding, he wrote.

Working groups either created or refocused in Carbondale, Edwardsville and the School of Medicine, will be tasked with crafting recommendations to achieve this and numerous other goals. Mahony is asking each campus to ensure ongoing conversations on diversity and inclusion that include feedback from any stakeholder that wishes to participate, he said. They will make recommendations to enhance efforts to recruit and retain minority students, faculty and staff. And a system of accountability, with measurable goals, will be established to ensure follow-through.

Mahony said its common in higher education and other arenas to react to incidences of racism and injustice promising to be more accepting and fair and then we just move on and continue to do things the way weve always done them.

Thats not what Im looking for, he said in an interview with The Southern. I want to change the way we do things.

Entering an era of reflection

Lolita L. Mack, president of SIUs Black Alumni Group, who has been asked to serve as a task force member on the Carbondale campus, said this most recent push for change gives me hope that they do hear our voices and different concerns, and they want to address it.

Mack recently penned a letter to SIU Carbondale campus leaders asking a series of pointed questions after a racist video circulated on social media. The video, made by the baseball teams starting pitcher, who graduated in May, was shared with a few others on Snapchat. It was made and shared presumably on or around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, though only recently surfaced publicly. As it circulated on Facebook and Twitter, SIU Carbondale immediately issued a statement condemning the video replete with the n-word. The university also distanced itself from the student, noting he had graduated and is no longer enrolled.

Mack applauded the swift response disavowing the message in the video. But she and other alumni were concerned the university did not go far enough as the now former student was at SIU on scholarship when the video was made and shared on Snapchat. Mack also questioned whether his behavior speaks to a broader need of the university, and athletic department specifically, to foster an anti-racist culture.

How will the university and Athletic Department ensure that racial sensitivity is covered in the learning environment in the future? she wrote in her letter to SIU administrators. What are officials willing to do to show future and current students and athletes that this is unacceptable behavior?

SIU Edwardsville also recently issued a public statement condemning hate speech after facing backlash for how it was monitoring comments on one of its Facebook posts. The original post highlighted the Rock a large rock on campus that students paint as a tradition bearing the message Black Lives Matter. The post, which was supportive of the statement on the rock, generated more than 500 comments.

Controversy erupted after SIU Edwardsville asked a commenter to edit a post in which he called another individual who had made racially charged and racist comments a racist, saying that direct name-calling violated its social media policy. At least some of the offensive comments were allowed to remain.

In a statement that followed, SIU Edwardwville said that the racist comments made on its public post do not reflect our Universitys values and that it encourages all members of our community to denounce racism, but also stood by its selective censorship policy.

Just as the Rock has allowed for free expression, we recognize, as a public university, we are legally required to uphold the First Amendment to the Constitution and free speech. As much as we disagree with the racist sentiments expressed in those posts, they are protected by the First Amendment.

SIUE spokesman Doug McIlhagga told The Southern on Friday that in the days since the original post and statement, campus leadership has decided to further review its social media guidelines. The university is working on a policy that will give more discretion to monitors to remove offensive content, he said. This may signal that the Edwardsville campus is embarking upon a new era of reflection.

Becoming a 'beacon of diversity and inclusion'

On June 12, a week later, Edwarsville announced an Anti-Racism Task Force, coinciding with Mahonys call for a systemwide undertaking on this front. In a statement to the campus, Chancellor Randy Pembrook and other top leaders said they recognize the fierce urgency of now to do this work. We have heard the pain and frustration among our students, staff and faculty. Emails and town halls will not be enough. Action and urgency are essential, their statement said. This approach must be rooted in humility, truth-telling, critical analysis, reflection, and a willingness to confront structural arrangements and institutional policies and practices that reinforce racism. And certainly, we must all do the work of challenging our individual beliefs.

Daniel Mahony, the new president of the Southern Illinois University System, discusses his vision for the future of the university during an interview in March in Carbondale.

Mahony said that an examination of systemic racism casts a broad net. It includes such things as examining hiring and promotion policies and practices, retention efforts, student recruitment and educational approach.

Teaching students about systemic racism can happen in any number of ways, he said. It could be taught as part of an introductory course or weaved throughout subject areas, or both.

At Winthrop University, in Rock Hill, South Carolina where Mahony served as president before coming to SIU in March incoming freshmen and transfer students received a copy of the book Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption. He said they were asked to read it prior to arriving on campus. It was then discussed in their freshman orientation class and in other conversations in their residence halls. The memoir by acclaimed civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson exposes deep inequities in the justice system that oppress minorities and people who are poor.

Mahony said that the campuses are not starting fresh on the topics of diversity, inclusion and anti-racism he acknowledged past efforts and numerous success stories. But he said its time to take this work further, and go deeper. A short-term step hes planning is making the SIU Systems chief diversity officer position full time. The individual serving in that role now does so in addition to his full-time duties within the SIU School of Medicine. But he wants the most significant changes at the campus levels to be driven by the people who make them up, rather than from the top down.

Incoming Carbondale Chancellor Austin Lane said that one thing that struck him about the Carbondale campus during his interviews is that he was asked numerous questions about his commitment to diversity and inclusion. Before all of the things that were seeing, that is one of the things that impressed me about SIU, he said. His campus interview predated the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, which has prompted a wave of nationwide protests and calls for racial equity. From that tragedy comes an opportunity to seize on the national push for a more just and inclusive society, and act in a more action-oriented manner locally, Lane said.

Lane is still a few weeks from officially assuming the chancellor position on the Carbondale campus; his contract calls for him to start by July 6. But hes already actively engaged in planning with SIUs leadership team and the broader community.

Lane, who is the first Black chancellor of the SIU Carbondale campus, stressed that this initiative is a genuine effort committed to real progress not just offering surface-level platitudes to diversity and inclusion. This is going to become part of the fabric of what were going to be doing within our strategic planning, he said. Lane said his goal is to create a campus culture that makes all feel welcome, regardless of race, national origin, sexual orientation or disability.

SIU, he said, should be seen as a beacon of diversity and inclusion. He also sees this as an enrollment-building exercise, as it equates to more students wanting to become a Saluki and attend SIU.

Athletic Department tackles racism

Mack, president of the Black Alumni Group, said this feels like a moment that could bring about real systemic change. She was encouraged by the fact that she received responses from the SIU president, incoming chancellor, athletic director and baseball coach all within 24 hours upon sending her letter via email expressing concern about the former baseball players video.

She also has since attended a Zoom meeting with Lane and had lunch with Athletic Director Liz Jarnigan. Mack said shes also since learned that the baseball player did face consequences beyond what the universitys statement detailed. Though he had graduated, NCAA rules permitted him to return in 2021 because the COVID-19 pandemic cut this spring's season short.

Mack said she learned that the opportunity was no longer available to him once SIU was made aware of the video. (An SIU spokeswoman said the university could not confirm the circumstances surrounding his exit from the team, citing student confidentiality laws, other than to say he will not play next year).

I hate to say that it took away opportunity, but sometimes we have to be responsible for the actions we have, Mack said. In this case, the responsibility for his actions was that he lost his last year of eligibility and his post-grad scholarship offer he was approved for.

Mack said shes also sought more information about the universitys position on student-athletes who may choose to kneel during the pre-game national anthem in future sporting events, as a form of peaceful protest. In 2017, three Black cheerleaders who chose to kneel during "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to the start of a football game faced an onslaught of criticism and even threats the university was also criticized for allowing it.

A few weeks after their first demonstration, the then-athletic director abruptly changed pregame protocol to remove cheerleaders from the field until after the start of the game. At the time, the athletic director said it was to allow members of the spirit teams to instead focus on greeting fans at the gates, but the cheerleaders, and others, felt it was driven by a desire to remove them from public view, and quell the backlash the university was facing.

This was during a time that many Black players across the nation were taking a knee during the national anthem at sports games as a form of political protest against systemic racism and police brutality, following in the footsteps of Colin Kaepernick, then-quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, who started the practice in 2016.

Jarnigan, who has been SIUs athletic director since September 2019, said the Athletic Department decided more than a year ago that should someone feel that its important for them to kneel theyre going to kneel, and theyre going to be allowed to kneel. The same goes for student-athletes who feel it is important to stand with their hands over their hearts theyre going to be allowed to do that.

We will honor what any of our student-athletes feel they need to do for the important points theyre trying to make, she said.

While the campus as a whole will be having conversations and making changes, Jarnigan said she wants to see the Athletics Department take a leading role, as it has in the past. Saluki Athletics has a rich history of championing diversity. At the dawn of the civil rights movement, Black student-athletes blazed trails at SIU on the court and field, in the classroom and beyond, benefiting countless students that followed them. But the Athletic Department still has more work to do, she said it is not enough to rest on past breakthroughs.

After the baseball players racist video went public, Jarnigan said she felt called to take broader action. But she also wants to ensure that whatever changes her department ushers in are meaningful, and not knee-jerk or simply intended to check off a box. She said her goal is to spend the summer listening to others, with the goal of implementing a plan at the beginning of the fall semester.

Words are really important but theyre not enough. Actions are really important but theyre not enough, she said. We need to figure out how to reach, educate, touch, whatever it is the hearts and souls of our student-athletes, of each other, when it comes to issues of racial justice and caring and kindness and thats what I want our plan to incorporate.

Is this the moment for real change?

Todd Bryson, interim associate chancellor for diversity at SIU Carbondale, said hes encouraged by the energy that Mahony and Lane are committing to this initiative. SIU has historically been a leader in creating a welcome atmosphere for all students, he said, though has also fallen short. When you talk to students, they want action, he said. Bryson said that he believes Mahony and Lane want to get it right and are committed to doing the hard work thats needed.

This might be the catalyst to push us forward, he said. This is a good time to be at SIU. I think we will look back in a few years and say, Wow, SIU is a different university than it was.

Caleb R. McKinley-Portee, a doctoral student studying Communications, with a specialization in Black performing arts, said he wants to have hope that this initiative will bring about the real changes students desire. That includes a commitment to a diverse faculty, and supporting academic programs that specialize in Black history and culture, such as Africana Studies, which has seen its department diminished to only three professors, he said.

McKinley-Portee, who is also a co-graduate advisor for the undergraduate-run Black Affairs Council, has seen and heard commitments for change from the top on and off for years often proclaiming that this time it will be different. Thats why its hard for him to know what to think about it at this stage. Hes spent a combined 10 years on the SIU campus, earning an undergraduate and masters degree, and now completing his doctorate. Hes served on countless committees and had numerous conversations with administrators.

Its really frustrating and its also exhausting to keep having these conversations and these meetings with administrators, and to keep showing up to the table to fight the good fight and not getting any results, he said. So now is the time, I believe, for SIU to show us what SIU is supposed to be about. Dont tell us, show us.

molly.parker@thesouthern.com

618-351-5079

On Twitter: @MollyParkerSI

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