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

The Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. Center for Education, Justice and Ethics; The new Graduate Program in Public Safety Leadership Administration in the Departments of Sociology and Criminology and Criminal Justice in conjunction with the law school in Baltimore; and The BSOS Summer Research Initiative to diversify the PhD pipeline. The Baha’i Chair for World Peace has a speaking series on Systemic Racism and the Root Causes of Prejudice. Drs. Hoda Mahmoudi and Ray have a forthcoming book featuring articles from series speakers who are some of the most renown race scholars in the country. The Department of African American Studies in collaboration with CRI, Baha’i, and the Judge Williams Center has a speaking series on reparations. It has featured Congresswoman Barbara Lee who has a Truth and Reconciliation Bill in Congress. The Departments of Psychology and Economics have impactful programs for students that aim to help students matriculate and view research as a desirable career path. Dean Kim Nickerson not only runs the BSOS Summer Research Initiative, but he started the Black History Tour on campus to tell the story of the role of African Americans in the founding of the university. The Critical Race Initiative, currently led by Dawn Dow in sociology and students across campus, hold a symposium every year in honor of Congressman Parren Mitchell. Mitchell was the first Black student to obtain a graduate degree while taking courses on campus. The Critical Race Initiative also has a professional development and writing workshop for graduate students and has helped conduct research on the university that further bolstered the ability to name the Art-Sociology Building after Congressman Mitchell and change the name of the stadium previously dedicated to a former president who refused to admit Black students. Members of the Critical Race Initiative have also testified on legislation at the state level, such as the Lt. Collins Hate Crime Bill, to ensure that hate and racism have no place on our campus and in our state. The University of Maryland is located in Prince George’s County, which is home to workingclass Black and Latinx communities, as well as the most affluent African American community in the United States. It also has a large and growing immigrant population, which creates opportunities for building bridges across ethnic and geographic divides. However, it has longstanding racial inequalities that manifest on the bodies of Black people. Despite the affluence of people in the county, it has one of the starkest income divides in the nation. The county also has the most COVID-19 cases in the state and continues to be plagued with misconduct lawsuits from residents about police brutality and from over 100 Black and Latinx officers about internal problems with promotion and discipline in the county police department. These outcomes are most stark in the killings of people that include Lt. Richard W. Collins III, William Green, Korryn Gaines, and Leonard Shand, which all occurred in the BaltimoreWashington Corridor. ABRI addresses four main areas: • Research and Events led by Professors Dawn Dow and Hoda Mahmoudi Pedagogy led by Professor Jessica Goldberg and Dean Kim Nickerson Professional Development led by Professor Antoine Banks and Dr. Nazish Salahuddin, and

• Community Engagement and Policy led by Professors Isabella Alcañiz and Joseph Richardson, which is outward facing to serve the needs of the community.

The following pages include reports from each of the committees listed above. As we continue our work, we are committed to investigating, discussing, and taking action to recognize and to prevent systemic racism, anti-Black racism and violence. It starts in our own departments and classrooms and expands to the broader communities that we live in. We take our inspiration from the words of our 34th President, Darryll J. Pines: “We stand in solidarity and united against injustice.”