call to action

End Racist Practices and Establish Epistemic Justice at the JFK Institute

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and in parallel to the ongoing uprisings against anti-Black racism and police brutality, calls for overdue change to historically and systemically racist institutions are being made. As students at the JFKI, we are an integral part of the university community and recognize our responsibility to organize for change within our own Institute. We must hold the faculty, staff, and each other accountable for addressing racial discrimination, as well as other often intersecting forms such as those based on gender, sexuality, ability, and class. Combating discrimination in the production of knowledge, or epistemic injustice, must be our priority. We recognize that systemic change is a long-term project, and we hope this initiative will be ongoing and collaborative between all members of the JFKI community.

The Institute’s Statement of Solidarity, while absolutely necessary, lacked any material commitments to change or any specific steps that need to be taken to dismantle white supremacy at the Institute. It made reference to the Institute’s activist past, but made no provisions for activism or political engagement in the present. Institute faculty clearly realized their position to address and educate the public on the situation in the United States, as demonstrated in their numerous media appearances these past weeks, but many failed to recognize their obligation to communicate with and support their own community, and to address the racism that exists within our own walls.

Lacking any forum initiated by the Institute’s administration, we distributed a survey amongst the student body on June 16, 2020, to gauge their collective concerns. The survey asked students how they have been affected by the recent uprisings and by racism at the Institute, and their comfort in raising these issues with teaching staff. While most (but not all) respondents felt comfortable voicing their perspective on Black Lives Matter and associated uprisings since May to teaching staff, nearly 70% of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) respondents did not feel supported by the Institute during this time. We held an open meeting to discuss these concerns, which led to the creation of the list of demands below.

We, the undersigned students of the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, call for the Institute to achieve the following:

ACTIVELY HIRE A MORE DIVERSE TEACHING STAFF

Equal hiring committee:
- Release a concrete plan for the hiring of BIPOC instructors, especially long-term and tenured faculty. The Institute needs to actively affirm Black scholarship and mentorship, and actively seek out diverse candidates to fill teaching positions.

Prioritize the work of BIPOC scholars.
- BIPOC belong in academic forums therefore the Institute must make it a priority for BIPOC scholars to present their work. While hiring may be a slow process, the John F. Kennedy Institute hosts numerous scholars every year to both research and give lectures, whether on an individual basis, as part of larger colloquia and symposia such as the Terra Foundation symposia, or for the yearly lecture series (“Ringvorlesung”). Faculty organizers of these talks and guest professorships must invite and host a more diverse group of scholars.

Hire BIPOC student assistants.
- Supporting BIPOC students must include employing BIPOC students in student and research assistant positions, as well as in TA positions. Diversity in hiring is all the more critical at the student level, given that students are far more economically vulnerable than professors.

PROVIDE GREATER SUPPORT FOR BIPOC STUDENTS

Work with the university mental health services (“Psychologische Beratung”) to make counselling and mental health support immediately available for BIPOC students at the JFKI.
- In our survey, over 60% of students responded that recent events related to BLM have affected their studies, reporting issues like lack of focus, stress, and anxiety. Many BIPOC students also wrote about experiencing racism and discrimination in Berlin and at the Institute. There must be a place for students to receive immediate and ongoing mental health support to address these experiences.

Address the racism that BIPOC students experience elsewhere in the university during their studies.
- Racism in other departments of the university, experienced during visa applications for required study abroad, in university hiring, etc. must be condemned by the Institute. BIPOC students should be supported by the Institute in addressing this discrimination.

Provide the opportunity for a forum between faculty and students to address BIPOC students’ concerns.
- In response to our survey, some BIPOC students requested a closed forum with faculty. This should be organized to accommodate all BIPOC students who wish to join. BIPOC students must be given a platform to communicate their experiences and specify the support they need.

CURRICULUM & TEACHING ENVIRONMENT

Instructors must immediately address students’ racism and other forms of discrimination in class.
- The Institute is responsible for creating a safe and accessible studying and working environment for all students. BIPOC students do not bear the responsibility of educating their peers about racist speech and behavior in classroom environments, while instructors sit silent.

Faculty members need to hold each other accountable for racist remarks and behavior.
- Faculty must not dismiss the concerns of BIPOC students when they experience racialized violence during the course of their studies. Instructors and students must stop using racial slurs in class. Non-Black instructors and students must immediately stop giving voice to the N-word, regardless of the context in which it is used.

End curricular violence.
- Studying traumatic histories does not necessitate reproducing trauma in a classroom environment. While the history and continued presence of racialized and other forms of violence and oppression in North America must be taught in its entirety, including images/video of graphic violence without advance warning is a traumatic pedagogical practice that disproportionately affects BIPOC students.

Create an obligatory course or module in both the BA and MA programs on intersectional analysis of race, gender and sexuality.
- A study of North America would be incomplete without the study of race issues, as systemic discrimination is an undeniable component in the construct of North American society. Students should not graduate from the Institute without addressing these issues in their studies.

Syllabus diversity must go beyond “Race week” and “Gender week” during which the same few non-white and non-male sources are assigned to offset the otherwise white male canon.
- This perpetuates a white status quo in the disciplines that we study, while isolating and tokenizing BIPOC and other perspectives. Many measures need to be taken to address this issue, from pairing problematic canonical texts with critical and/or anti-racist secondary scholarship to ensuring that the work of BIPOC scholars is not assigned solely for units specifically related to identity. We ask each department to audit the diversity of their own syllabi and make a statement to the student body addressing their plans to improve the diversity of their teaching material.

Introduce more dedicated courses in areas such as Latinx Studies, Border Studies, Indigenous Studies, Asian-American, Muslim-American, and Jewish-American studies, and support this research.
- These fields are critical to North American Studies, and belong in our Institute. As there is ongoing scholarship in some of these topics elsewhere at the FU, the JFKI could work to cross-list classes or collaborate with other teaching institutes. North America is not limited to the U.S. and Canada, and neither should North American Studies be. Excluding Mexico and the Caribbean is a highly offensive act, especially considering the current political situation with respect to ICE, and the fact that the demographic composition of the US is increasingly Latinx.

Make English the primarily language of the entire Institute environment, not just the teaching language.
- While classes are taught in English, many students arrive at the program only to find that institute communication (including job listings and other notices, as well as the meetings of the Institute Council) and other necessary administrative processes are in German. This is a discriminatory act that ensures the exclusion of large portions of the student body from full participation in the landscape of the university (as over 40% of BA students and 60% of MA students are not from Germany).

OUTREACH TO THE MEDIA AND FU ADMINISTRATION

Pressure the FU to make a university-wide statement.
- Faculty of the JFKI should put pressure on and offer guidance to the administration of the FU to make a university-wide statement condemning police violence and addressing racism within academia and within Germany.

Demand a disciplinary process to address cases of racism and other forms of discrimination.
- A process needs to be in place and made accessible to all students to make formal complaints when they experience racism, harassment, or other forms of violence and discrimination.

Do not feed the narrative that anti-Black racism is an “American problem” that “doesn’t happen here”.
- When JFKI faculty are called upon as “experts” to explain racism in the U.S. and Canada, they must make clear that anti-Black racism and police brutality are not issues that only exist in the United States or North America. German scholars who understand the history of racial violence in North America have a responsibility to address and eradicate racism in their own country.

When invited for media appearances, Institute faculty must actively reflect on their positionality and refer media outlets and other institutions to individuals better suited to address these issues.
- White professors’ first consideration when asked to speak on issues of race should be, who can I refer who may be better qualified to speak on this issue?

The above list of demands is only the first step of a larger process that will require faculty, staff and students alike to collaboratively change the learning and working environment of the JFKI. For example, we will be working with the FSI to publish a Code of Conduct and Language Guide for both students and faculty to create a more equitable environment.

We request that each department discuss these demands together and develop concrete plans and deadlines to achieve these goals. These plans must then be communicated to the entire student body by the start of the Winter Semester.

Touting its activist history, the Freie Universität Berlin describes itself as “a place where the fundamental political questions about the future of society and higher education are addressed.” In our experience, however, it too often remains institutionally passive and complacent in dismantling injustices from within. The JFKI and FU must prove that the ethos of “truth, justice and freedom” offers more than mere lip service, and is rooted in direct and continuous action.

As members of the student body, we commit to holding the Institute accountable for the abolition of racist practices and structures.