Trojan Council meeting addresses racial equity and inclusion efforts

Tuesday marked the semesterly meeting of the Trojan Council, this time focusing on racial equity, consisting of leadership in Undergraduate and Graduate Student Governments, Staff Assembly and the Academic Senate, joined by President Carol Folt and Vice President for Student Affairs Winston Crisp. Founded in 2017, the council aims to bring student voices and concerns to University leadership in formal discussion.

The most recent Trojan Council meeting was smoother than the last one, according to USG Vice President Trinity Moore in an interview with the Daily Trojan. This was the first meeting to feature a presentation, and Moore said there were more plans and tangible goals involved. “Last semester, I think some of the participants were a little frustrated that some of their questions weren’t being addressed or that they weren’t being answered.”

The meeting opened with a statement by Folt about the disruptive changes of the past year, from the protests following police brutality to the removal of the former University President Rufus von KleinSmid’s name and bust from the University Center for International and Public Affairs building. Folt also addressed the recent work of the USC Department of Public Safety Community Advisory Board, which compiled listening sessions of over 700 participants.

“In the summer, we probably had what is one of the most important social movements to have taken place in recent years … It was a call, a time for us to confront anti-Blackness and systemic racism,” Folt said. “It’s been at the top of all of our minds.”

In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, USC created a task force dedicated to promoting racial equality at the University called REDI, or Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Folt appointed Christopher Manning as chief inclusion and diversity officer. Manning, hired as a part of the equity efforts spearheaded by REDI, is the first person to hold the position, according to Folt. During the forum, Manning briefly went over his goals to promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion when he officially starts his post March 1. 

“I really want to have a lot of one-on-one conversations with students, staff, faculty, shared governance leaders, as well as senior executives, to engage in a situational diagnosis of the state of DEI at USC,” Manning said. “I’d like to try to begin identifying some high yield opportunities to get off the ground quickly.” 

Following Manning, Manuel Pastor, REDI co-chair and distinguished professor of sociology and American studies & ethnicity, spoke briefly about the upcoming 45 to 50 page report outlining “what should be done” about diversity, equity and inclusion at USC. 

A majority of the meeting consisted of a presentation on REDI’s action plan for ameliorating racial disparities in both faculty and students moving forward. The presentation, given by co-chairs Pastor and Senior Vice President of Human Resources Felicia Washington, covered upcoming department requirements to increase transparency in their evaluations of merit in promoting and retaining faculty and staff to investing in research on diversity, inclusion and equity. 

“When you look at [our] staff, you can also see that there’s some decreased diversity in staff workforce that’s occurred over time,” Washington said. “The reasons for some early departures of newly employed staff include the lack of professionalism of the managers and supervisors, a lack of professional development and also the perceived lack of demonstrated care about the staff member’s career projection.” 

The presentation concluded with a summary of REDI’s overarching themes, which outlined a general plan to “create systems of transparency” and reexamine potentially racist systems and practices, as well as providing more funding for DEI cultural centers. 

“We understand that this will cost money,” Pastor said. “We think that in order to do that, be worthwhile and actually find a market to launch a bold and ambitious campaign for equity. I think to do that, we need to facilitate racial equity work with the Board of Trustees, in the school level, with courts and counselors.” 

The latter half of the meeting was open to student and faculty questions, submitted via the chat function in Zoom and open to all participants.

The questions were primarily answered by Washington, Manning and Folt.

One faculty member asked what USC plans to do regarding USC staff workers, many of which are working class and Black and Indigenous people and people of color, who are currently unemployed due to coronavirus-related layoffs. 

Washington addressed the context of the question, acknowledging that staff employees unable to work since March of last year were either laid off or reduced to an unpaid status late December. 

“Over 90% of these employees are in situations such that they have the ability and a right to be recalled within 18 months … One of the things the University has done is open the employee support fund to these employees,” she said. 

There were no comments on future plans to help currently unemployed workers. 

Katie Orban, a graduate student studying molecular biology and public policy, said that Black and Indigenous students and students of color are typically of lower income and are less likely to be involved in unpaid research. Orbain asked if there was a plan to provide funding to enable students of color to participate.

“Lower income [students and] students of color frequently have tremendous family responsibilities,” Pastor added. 

“That’s a big issue in Dornsife,” Folt said. “They are out trying to raise tens of millions of dollars for that very important set of opportunities for our students.”

In an interview with the Daily Trojan, Orban said that experience has told her that the ambition of REDI should be carefully watched. 

“From my experience, there’s very lofty goals attached to issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. They’re often very well intentioned,” Orban said. “Also, very often, once diversity, equity and inclusion issues are no longer in the forefront of everyone’s minds, they also fail to be at the forefront of university policy.” 

Orban wasn’t the only one who had doubts about the task force. Another faculty member asked if REDI was going to put aside academic performance standards in order to hire someone on the basis of their membership in a specific community. 

“That’s a caricature of a position,” Pastor responded. “I don’t think that we’re saying, ‘Let’s put blinders on around scholarly attributes’… We are wasting some really big opportunities out there to diversify our faculty and increase our research productivity to drive in new money through strategic advantages.” 

The event ended, with the panel having answered a handful of concerns from both faculty and students on USC’s plans for addressing racial disparities within their administration, faculty and staff.  

“I’m really hoping that we get meaningful change,” Orban said. “I think it will be interesting to see if this attitude towards making things more diverse, equitable and inclusive trickles down from University administration to different departments.”