Abstract
At least 6 years before President Donald Trump labeled Critical Race Theory as ‘divisive’ and ‘anti-American propaganda’ graduate students at UC Berkeley were actively working to include it in the curriculum. Insisting on Critical Race Theory’s (CRT) relevance for all students and as a fundamental way of approaching all subjects taught, student organizers in 2014 called for an extensive curricula reform at the Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP). ‘I remember the former dean’s response when we presented our demands to him” a former student told me, “he said that he could easily teach a course on race, cause he played Basket Ball with African Americans in his youth, so he knew about race!”.
Disappointed by the administration’s inadequate response to their wishes for curriculum change different student cohorts took it upon themselves to teach a class on CRT, and from 2015 to 2020 they continued the tradition of facilitating the course. Though the students and the reading lists changed, each year built on the previous by integrating insights and evaluations and developing to respond to new and old challenges in Public Policy education. The CRT course became of critical importance for a group of students as a tool to change the direction of their Public Policy education, and as a community space in which to digest the other parts of the master's program and the world around them. The CRT course led by students at the Goldman School is one example of how students at UC Berkeley are increasingly challenging curricula they understand to be inadequate in an effort to understand structural racism as embedded in society at large, and therefore also in Higher Education.
Based on 5 months of fieldwork at UC Berkeley, and several months of online fieldwork this presentation unpacks students’ wishes for a more critical university.
The continuous engagement by student activists, tells us something of the kind of activism engendered by students, and their wish to change the institution from the inside. First of all, it is telling that the students engage, rather than disengage. When they experience an inadequate response from the administration, they are not satisfied, but they do not give up on their demands, and they also do not walk away from the GSPP. Instead, they carve out alternative ways of bettering the university for themselves and their cohort, while they also remain responsible for an imagined future as a policy analyst or lawmaker with relative power to change or influence society at large.
I suggest that this work can be thought of as a careful and affirmative critique, understood as a gentle, yet severe, quiet, yet persistent molding practice of insisting and keeping on insisting on change. An affirmative and careful critique that might change the institution from within.
Disappointed by the administration’s inadequate response to their wishes for curriculum change different student cohorts took it upon themselves to teach a class on CRT, and from 2015 to 2020 they continued the tradition of facilitating the course. Though the students and the reading lists changed, each year built on the previous by integrating insights and evaluations and developing to respond to new and old challenges in Public Policy education. The CRT course became of critical importance for a group of students as a tool to change the direction of their Public Policy education, and as a community space in which to digest the other parts of the master's program and the world around them. The CRT course led by students at the Goldman School is one example of how students at UC Berkeley are increasingly challenging curricula they understand to be inadequate in an effort to understand structural racism as embedded in society at large, and therefore also in Higher Education.
Based on 5 months of fieldwork at UC Berkeley, and several months of online fieldwork this presentation unpacks students’ wishes for a more critical university.
The continuous engagement by student activists, tells us something of the kind of activism engendered by students, and their wish to change the institution from the inside. First of all, it is telling that the students engage, rather than disengage. When they experience an inadequate response from the administration, they are not satisfied, but they do not give up on their demands, and they also do not walk away from the GSPP. Instead, they carve out alternative ways of bettering the university for themselves and their cohort, while they also remain responsible for an imagined future as a policy analyst or lawmaker with relative power to change or influence society at large.
I suggest that this work can be thought of as a careful and affirmative critique, understood as a gentle, yet severe, quiet, yet persistent molding practice of insisting and keeping on insisting on change. An affirmative and careful critique that might change the institution from within.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication date | Nov 2023 |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2023 |
| Event | American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting: Transitions - Canada, Toronto Duration: 15 Nov 2023 → 19 Nov 2023 https://annualmeeting.americananthro.org/ |
Conference
| Conference | American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting |
|---|---|
| Location | Canada |
| City | Toronto |
| Period | 15/11/2023 → 19/11/2023 |
| Internet address |