Confronting Racism

UToledo Experts Advocate for Social Justice Amid a National Reckoning with Racism

Following a historic election, the nation now looks to unite as it confronts systemic racism fueled by racial injustice and police brutality. UToledo students are advocating for social justice by organizing kneel-ins in support of White Coats for Black Lives and peaceful protests. UToledo leaders created a Center for Racial Equity and Black Student Excellence to address issues of racism and support the academic experiences of African American students. And UToledo faculty across disciplines have dedicated their careers to identifying and eliminating inequities.

Photo credit: UToledo medical student Stephne Rasiah documented a campus White Coats for Black Lives kneel-in.

In 2016 Willie McKether, Ph.D., was named UToledo's first vice president for diversity and inclusion and has since led strategic diversity planning that has led to increased retention and graduation rates of underrepresented minority students and feelings of inclusiveness on campus.

Monita Mungo, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology, explains in The Blade how systemic racism affects the choices and chances of individuals and the importance of perceptions and narratives used to describe recent social justice protests.

A historian on policing, assistant professor Michael Stauch, Ph.D., advises in a column in the Washington Post that police reform needs to move beyond technical solutions to address how policing practices reinforce patterns of inequality.

An assistant professor of English who specializes in African American literature and culture, Kimberly Mack, Ph.D., explores in her latest book, "Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White," how blues artists resist racial, social, economic and gendered oppression through their work.

The debut collection of poetry, "To the River, We Are Migrants," from Ayendy Bonifacio, Ph.D., assistant professor of U.S. ethnic literary studies, helps us better understand what it means to be a migrant in these turbulent times. He shared his story in a column in the New York Times.

The rising death rate from COVID-19 among minority communities in the United States is serving as a grim reminder of a longstanding racial disparity in end-of-life planning, according to Timothy Jordan, Ph.D., professor in the School of Population Health.

Renée Heberle, Ph.D., co-director of the Program in Law and Social Thought and coordinator of the Inside/Out Prison Exchange Project, praises in a column in The Hill local reparations initiatives that could lead to national policy remedying racial injustice.

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