UFS Statement on Racial Equity and Social Justice

The Executive Committee of the State University of New York’s University Faculty Senate condemns the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and high numbers of Black, Native, Latinx, LGBTQ+, poor, disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill people.  We honor their lives, grieve with their loved ones and communities, cry out for justice in their names, and lament that our public health, economic, policing, and environmental crises weigh heaviest on their communities.  We applaud protestors’ determination, diversity, and demand for change.  We value the wisdom of activists, community organizations, and experts on causes, contexts, and remedies for racial profiling, police militarization, hyperincarceration, and state violence.

As educators, health professionals, and scholars proudly serving New York’s diverse communities, we have a responsibility and opportunity to help dismantle systemic racism and build racial equity and social justice.  We know we have not done this well enough; we must get better and do better.  As a start, we must better

• educate the SUNY community about how systemic, structural, historical, and social inequities affect people’s living conditions, lived experiences, and life chances, from education to employment, from health care to life expectancies, from environmental exposures to health outcomes, from interactions with law enforcement to incarceration rates, and more.
• assess how social and racial justice is taught and learned in our courses, residence halls, athletic sites, and other campus spaces.
• model equitable, inclusive, and fair treatment of underrepresented, underserved, and over-policed people and communities for people of all identities and backgrounds.
• support the free exchange of ideas, the search for truth, and a safe and welcoming learning and living environment for all our students.
• examine, identify, and remove obstacles to increasing diversity and eliminating individual, institutional, and structural racism within and across SUNY.
• scrutinize SUNY’s relationship with law enforcement and criminal justice systems.
• advocate for our local towns/cities and counties to divest from racist and violent systems of policing and incarceration and invest instead in public health, housing, health care, education, and community-led alternatives to policing.

We call on SUNY campus administrations to state clearly that hate speech, intimidation, and violence have no place in SUNY.

Working together, our SUNY communities can become the change we want to see and help bend the arc of justice.  SUNY and UFS will be judged by our actions and their results.  Please click on the following links for our initial calls for action to our colleagues and campus administrations.  We welcome feedback and suggestions for further action, policymaking, and culture change.

• Link to Colleague Page
• Link to Campus Administrator Page

About the SUNY University Faculty Senate
The University Faculty Senate represents the faculty and professional staff of the State University of New York’s 34 state-operated campuses.