VCU NAACP leads students, faculty in march against postponement of required racial literacy course

Tarazha Jenkins, Contributing Writer

Students and faculty could be heard chanting “Knowledge is power; Black books matter” from the University Student Commons to Monroe Park. 

Students, professors and activists marched through campus last week, holding signs and chanting, after VCU administration postponed the requirement of a racial literacy course in July 2023, less than a month before classes began, according to a previous report by The Commonwealth Times.  

The NAACP chapter at VCU organized the march to bring awareness and express disapproval of the requirement’s postponement. 

“In the creation of these doctors, lawyers, governors and officials, we need to understand how racism acts in our society and how it is in every single system we live in,” said Anesia Lawson, vice president of VCU NAACP chapter. 

Lawson is an undergraduate political science student and said she thought she knew what racism was before taking the “Race and Racism in America” course her first year at VCU.

The racial literacy course requirement was first proposed by Mignonne Guy, professor and chair of the department of African American Studies, at a 2019 Racial Literacy in Higher Education panel. At the panel, Guy asked four university presidents if their schools required a race and racism course, in which none of their schools did. 

Guy, founder of the Committee on Racial Equality, or CORE, along with its members of over 30 VCU faculty, undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of disciplines, came together to develop a course on race and racism, according to the committee’s website. 

The course “Race and Racism in America” was then offered to students in spring 2022. 

“It’s systematic, it’s institutional, it’s so much deeper than what people think it is,” Lawson said. “How do we ever expect to change if people are not educated on what’s really happening?” 

Ana Edwards, course coordinator for “Race and Racism in America,” said the racial protests in 2020 brought up questions, concerns and conversations amongst faculty and students. The protests triggered a desire to address the role of systemic racism in United States’ history, Edwards said.

A push for the requirement on campus occurred after George Floyd’s murder and international protests against racial discrimination were held in 2020, according to sociology professor Susan Bodnar-Deren in a previous article by The Commonwealth Times. 

Edwards, who is also an assistant professor for the department of African American studies at VCU, marched alongside students at the NAACP march. 

“I’m all for students coming together, getting clear on what their concerns are and getting organized about responding to or proposing their interest to the Department, to the Provost to whomever,” Edwards said. “I mean students make up the University, right?” 

Edwards said this is her first year teaching at VCU and it was great to see students bringing attention to the issue.

“When you are visible and out in an organized way, it shows other people that there is something going on that maybe should be paid attention to,” Edwards said.

Edwards currently teaches 128 students in her “Race and Racism in America” course, and said there are more than 500 students taught by other faculty.

“The course is here — there’s a commitment to the course itself,” Edwards said. “We are learning how it’s being received. The fact it’s not required and we are teaching that many students means there’s interest.”

Over 200 faculty members from Virginia colleges and universities, students, local and national supporters signed a letter in July, expressing frustration in response to its postponement.

“In a political moment where we have seen a national concerted effort to censor course content, blatant historical oppression, and attempts to subvert multiracial solidarity,” the letter states. “The actions of VCU’s top-level administrators represents a broader pattern of silencing and retaliation against those faculty who would commit their classes to the truthful teaching of our shared history of the United States.”

The racial literacy requirement’s removal is not indefinite, according to Aaron Hart, vice president of student affairs. 

“Its implementation as a university-wide requirement for all students has been delayed due to course capacity shortages,” Hart stated in an email.

The delay of the requirement comes after Gov. Glenn Youngkin campaigned against critical race theory, the framework that acknowledges systemic racism as part of American society. He signed an executive order in January 2022, shortly after his inauguration, to remove critical race theory from Virginia’s education system.

Edwards said capacity shortage should not be a reason for the postponement of the course.

VCU was designated as a Minority Service Institution in 2022, making the institution eligible for more federal grant and funding opportunities beginning in July 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Education. 

VCU proposed cutting general education faculty’s contracts earlier this year.

“A refusal to expand instructional capacity coupled with mass layoffs of general education faculty, many of whom have requested to teach racial literacy in response to a survey seeking faculty willing to teach the requirement that was administered to them in October 2020,” the letter stated. 

Advisors, faculty and staff scrambled for weeks to prepare for the course’s August launch and confusion around the abrupt change in degree requirements impacted students, especially first-generation college students, the letter stated.  

Shawn Williams, a interdisciplinary studies graduate student at VCU, attended the march last week. They said not enough students are talking about the course, but felt a sense of pride marching past Cabell Library and chanting the response “Black books matter.” 

“It is important for students to analyze racial literacy  — especially freshmen coming to VCU in Richmond, Virginia, where it is both a very diverse school and city,” Williams said. “That’s across the board for Black students; it’s a way to affirm our experiences and to give actual tangible examples and vocabulary to our experiences.”  

The course was not reactionary to just the 2020 protests alone, Williams said. 

“This class was planned before 2020, so you can’t use the excuse ‘this was born out of BLM,’” Williams said. “I’ve seen the way VCU has changed from a pre-2020 uprising to a post-2020.”

Williams enrolled at VCU in 2019. 

“The way in which the governor specifically has attacked K-12 education — book bans, anti-CRT [critical race theory] in classrooms— it’s fear mongering and essentially racist rhetoric,” Willams said. 

Williams said publicity surrounding VCU’s status as a MSI feels like “lip service,” and said they feel lied to about the culture, ethics and morals of what the school is about after the recent curriculum change. 

Cameron Hart, graduate student and community service chair for NAACP chapter at VCU said she felt it was necessary to directly ask VCU President Michaeeal Rao about the delay in the requirement. 

Rao cited staffing issues and emphasized that the administration is delaying the requirement , not removing it in his response, according to Hart. 

Hart, who also enrolled at VCU in 2019, said she hopes to see a VCU “that displays action more than words,” and looks forward to “a more equitable campus for all students.” 

Attendees at the NAACP-led march discussed the power of applying more pressure going forward to ensure the course will be required in the near future for incoming students. 

Williams and Anesia Lawson said organizing at universities and on a state legislative level is next. 

“I hope next spring more and more folks will come out and apply pressure,” Williams said.