Examples

My syllabi contain basic elements that are familiar to most faculty and students (e.g., list of readings, due dates, grading criteria, learning goals) as well as a statement of my teaching philosophy and information about accessing important services, both on campus and off (e.g., mental health counseling, sexual assault and domestic violence resources, disability services, writing support, etc.) But until recently they did not contain an explicit statement about my commitment to creating an antiracist classroom environment. As part of our work together, Eastern's Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology, and Social Work Department Antiracism Committee looked at what other universities are doing in terms of antiracism syllabus statements. We developed the following sample statement that I will be using on my syllabi:

We begin by acknowledging that the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut have been stewarded by the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Nipmuc, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, Lenape, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples throughout the generations. We honor and respect their strength and resilience in protecting this land and aspire to uphold our responsibilities according to their example. As your professor, I commit to the process of making this an anti-racist classroom environment. Anti-racist means, “One who is expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity” (Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, p. 24). I commit to creating a climate in which everyone is respected, valued, and heard. I commit to interrupting racism, racial microaggressions, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression and call each of you in to do the same. As mentioned above, this course is intersectional and values diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, LGBTQIA+ identities, age, socioeconomic status, immigration status, religion, neurodiversity, and disability, among others.

(California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo also has examples of syllabus statements and a list of questions that faculty can ask themselves to develop their own syllabus statement on diversity and inclusion:

• Syllabus Statements: Inclusion and Classroom Climate - CTLT - Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

• Fostering Diversity and Inclusion In Classrooms)

Some have critiqued land acknowledgement or antiracism statements for being empty or not going far enough. In an article in Inside Higher Education titled "Land Acknowledgements Accomplish Little," physics professor Alex Small argues that "if you actually want to help people from your speaking platform, then ask the audience to do something." I think this is a fair critique, though for my classes, this syllabus statement does lay the groundwork for asking the audience to do something: critical reflection on racial and social justice issues. But does it go far enough?

Like many academics, I was taught to write a syllabus as a "contract" between professor and student. As a result, they can have a punitive tone (e.g., "If you don't do this, this negative consequence will happen"). As I began to work with colleagues to craft the antiracism syllabus statement, I started to look at my syllabi more holistically. While my intention was to convey information and standards, I began to wonder about the unintentional outcomes. How does my syllabus land with my students? Does it invite students in or shut them out? And if so, which students may be put off by my words and tone? In revising my syllabi, I have looked at areas where my wording may be read as punitive and have revised those sections to convey that I believe all students can be successful in my classes.

Of course, this conversation is predicated on the assumption that students read the syllabus. I go over it on the first day of class of course, but how can students have more ownership of it? One method is to set community guidelines together. I leave a blank area in the syllabus for students to brainstorm ahead of time how they envision the course and then we discuss as a class. The process of listening to each other and coming up with community guidelines together sets a collaborative, democratic (with a small "d") tone for the semester.

The "white savior" phenomenon refers to "a white person who provides help to non-white people in a self-serving manner. The role is considered a modern-day version of what is expressed in the poem "The White Man's Burden" (1899) by Rudyard Kipling" (Wikipedia). I share the following examples from my own teaching in the hopes that it will encourage other faculty to consider how they might be inadvertently perpetuating the white savior complex as well, and to consider how they could challenge it.

The first example comes from Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, a #1 New York Times bestselling book by journalist Tracy Kidder that chronicles the experiences of anthropologist and physician Dr. Farmer and the organization he founded, Partners in Health. I have used it in my Senior Seminar class for the past few years to spark conversations about global health and social inequality. But as I think about it through the lens of antiracist pedagogy, I realize that it glosses over the impact of race and racism. It also tends to set up Dr. Farmer as a "saint" and savior of the Haitian poor (even though he himself rejects this framing). Rather than continuing to uncritically teach this book, I have begun thinking about what I might do differently in the future. Could I keep it (or chapters from it) but add readings that call out and challenge the white savior complex? Should I shelve the book in favor of another text that more critically addresses the connections between racism and health from a non-U.S. perspective? Could I assign Dr. Farmer's new book Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History that takes a critical perspective? I am still contemplating and may do the first option next semester and then take more time to prepare to teach a different book in the future. What I will not do is teach Mountains Beyond Mountains without asking my students to think critically about the white savior phenomenon.

The second example relates to conversations I have had with my Senior Seminar students regarding their community engagement work. In the past, I have shown Natalie Warne's TEDxTeen talk in which she describes her experience as a biracial young volunteer for the organization Invisible Children. One of the goals of Invisible Children was to push for the arrest of Ugandan leader Joseph Kony, who had been accused of abducting children to become soldiers and sex slaves for his militia in Central Africa starting in the mid-1980s. My intention was to show students the power of social movements and to illustrate anthropologist Margaret Mead's quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." However, once I began thinking more critically about the "white savior complex," it became clear that the tactics that Invisible Children used were highly problematic. Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole published a piece in The Atlantic just after Invisible Children released the short film Kony 2012 in which he wrote:

"I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than “making a difference.” There is the principle of “First do no harm.” There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them."

Rather than uncritically highlighting Western organizations whose (primarily white) leaders see it as their job to "save" or "rescue" mostly Black or brown people in developing countries, I will be asking students to look with a critical eye at movements for social justice and ask: Who benefits? Whose stories are being told? Whose voices are left out?

When our department Antiracism Committee surveyed all students who took at least one class in our department in Fall 2020, students of color were significantly less likely than white students to say that they had the opportunity to learn about people of their race or ethnicity in a Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology, or Social Work (SACSW) class (58.6% compared to 76.0%, p≤.01). This prompted me to reflect that out of a dozen different books I have used in Senior Seminar over the years, all but two were by white authors. While many addressed issues of race, ethnicity, racism, and xenophobia in some way, some did so in a superficial way or not at all. Since one of the 6 basic tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is that racism is an “ordinary” part of how society operates and most people of color have it as their everyday experience. This “ordinariness,” Delgado and Stefancic argue, makes it “difficult to cure or address” (p. 7). Another tenet of CRT is that people of color have a unique voice and are “able to communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know” (Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, p. 9), part of my antiracism work is to foreground the scholarship of BIPOC scholars.

For example, in the past, I have previously assigned writer Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals to discuss the U.S. food system but have decided to assign anthropologist Ashanté Reese's Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. (2019). In addition, rather than assigning sociologist Joanna Dreby's Everyday Illegal, in which she discusses being a white, non-Latinx woman who was married to an undocumented Mexican immigrant, I will be assigning sociologist Angela García's Legal Passing: Navigating Undocumented Life and Local Immigration Law (2019).