ABRI Final Report 2020-21

INTRODUCTION In response to the recent tragic killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other African Americans—in many of these cases at the hands of law enforcement—The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) at the University of Maryland formed The Anti-Black Racism initiative to further coordinate, publicize, and enhance our efforts to identify, disrupt, and prevent anti-Black racism.

The Anti-Black Racism initiative is designed to promote long-term change in the college and on the campus, and beyond. Grounded in the behavioral and social sciences, our mission is to elevate the status and experience of African Americans. To do so, we are engaging in supporting scholarship, teaching, and dialogues of all types to fight against anti-Black racism in our society at all levels—individual, structural, and cultural. As a college, we are self-examining and promoting changes in how we engage anti-racism; how we teach about these issues at the undergraduate and graduate levels; and how we hire, mentor, support, and retain faculty and staff. A top priority of our work is to identify pathways and avenues for lasting change.

In Summer 2020, over 40 faculty, staff, and students with representation from every department in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences answered the call to volunteer to form the AntiBlack Racism Initiative and stand up for racial equity and social justice. We have committed to investigating, discussing, and taking action to recognize and to prevent systemic racism, antiBlack racism and violence. We are especially focused on research and action related to social policies and reforms. Our research on anti-Black racism focuses on topics such as policing and police brutality, judicial processes, sentencing, voting and social movements, work and the economy, violence, family, health, geography, and climate. Drawing from our diverse disciplines and the expertise of our faculty, administration, students, staff, and alumni, we seek to provide programming and dialogue that will address these and many more topics in solution- and change-oriented ways.

The Anti-Black Racism Initiative is led by Professor Rashawn Ray in the Department of Sociology. In Summer 2020, Dr. Ray said, “This initiative firmly places the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences in a position to help our university, county, state, and country move forward toward racial equity. BSOS faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students are committed to ameliorating systemic racism. This starts in our own departments and classrooms and expands to the broader communities that we live in. University of Maryland has the potential to be a national model on these fronts and we look forward to continuing to play a part in this process.”

One primary goal of the Anti-Black Racism Initiative is to address racism on our campus and in our local community, produce scholarship that advances a national conversation and policy agenda on social justice, and empower students to envision and create a racially equitable future.

While the Anti-Black Racism Initiative is new, faculty, staff, and students in the College of Behavioral and Sciences have engaged in anti-racist research for years. Of note, the Anti-Black Racism Initiative builds upon centers and programs including: • The Critical Race Initiative in Sociology; • The Baha’i Chair for World Peace in the college; • The Department of African American Studies; 2