Opinion | ‘We need to change our approach to race and intersectional discrimination’
The Department of Political Science at the UvA aspires to be a leading voice in the promotion of diversity in the Dutch higher education sector. But it is not doing enough, state 80 concerned members of the Department. ‘Our failure is evident in the ideas we have promoted and the community we have built.’
As members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, we express our support for, and solidarity with, global protests against racially unjust policing and racial injustice in all its forms. This protest movement began in the US, but does not refer to a uniquely US problem. Racial injustice and inequality - intersecting with religion, gender, sexuality and class - generate unjust forms of discrimination in every society on earth.
Our institution has an important role to play in combatting this discrimination and injustice. More than that, we aspire to be a leading voice in the Netherlands higher education sector, in the promotion of diversity, equality and justice.
We acknowledge that we have yet to live up to this important responsibility. Our failure is evident in the ideas we have promoted and the community we have built. More specifically: we have not adequately focussed on issues of race and its intersectionalities in our research; we have not done enough to provide our students with the knowledge to understand and respond to issues of race and its intersectionalities in our teaching; we have failed to adequately attract and retain persons of colour in our student body, failed to recruit and promote staff of colour and failed to adequately understand how race and other forms of difference intersect to affect our student and staff working life and performance. It is not enough to shake our heads at one police officer in Minneapolis or one President in North America.
We recognize that we are not doing enough.
These shortcomings cannot be addressed by the adoption of policies and measures that promote non-discrimination and tolerance alone. They stem from structural problems in our education sector, our academic discipline and the community as a whole. They also stem from a non-transparent, informal and hierarchical decision-making structure at our university that perpetuates racial and other inequalities. As such, these shortcomings require ongoing measures designed to combat structural and institutional inequalities and prejudice. With these points in mind, we call on colleagues in our Department to commit to the following goals:
1. To give added attention to racial inequality, injustice and intersectional forms of discrimination and inequality in our teaching and research; and
2. To recruit, retain and promote a more racially diverse student and staff body, and seek to eliminate the negative impacts of race and other intersecting forms of difference on their experiences and careers at the UvA;
There are many concrete measures that our Department may use to achieve these two goals. The ‘Let’s Do Diversity’ report commissioned by the University and prepared by Prof. Wekker et al, the Faculty Diversity Working Group and the Department of Political Science diversity meetings have each been vital in conceptualising and promoting concrete measures on the topics of race and intersectional discrimination. Drawing on these and other resources, we believe that the Department should consider to:
- allocate resources in the form of teaching hours for the purpose of curriculum reform;
- allocate teaching administration resources to expand and improve its minority student recruitment and support measures;
- allocate resources to support research on race and intersectionality;
- allocate teaching or programme group resources to support mentoring of minority students and staff;
- reform hiring practices to require department-wide committees for all positions, including for the consideration of ‘embedding’ guarantees, and temporary and tenure-track staff;
- collect data on the diversity of its student and staff (academic and support) body;
- actively study and seek to address racial and intersectional forms of hierarchy in the department, paying specific attention to the following disparities: Professorial/Non-Professorial Academics; Research/Teaching; Academic/Administration&Support; and
- advocate for changes in the allocation of major research resources (RPAs, Grant Funding etc) at the Faculty, University and National level.
The precise package of changes that our Department adopts can be a matter of debate. What can no longer be debated is that we need to change our approach to race and intersectional discrimination now. The signatories to this statement are actively working to achieve these concrete changes in our Departmental policy. We are calling upon our colleagues, students and the wider university community to support us in our goal of making the Political Science Department at the UvA a leading voice on these issues, from today.
Colleagues of the Domain of Social Sciences and of other universities stand together with the staff of the Political Science Department. Like our Political Science colleagues, we stand in solidarity with the global protests against racial injustice and we recognise that we have not done enough work towards racial justice in our research, our teaching, and the hiring and retention of colleagues of color. We acknowledge that it is our collective responsibility to combat racial injustice in our own departments and across the Faculty as a whole.
Signatories (in order of signing – as of 14 June 2020)
Political sciences
Darshan Vigneswaran
Abbey Steele
Polly Pallister-Wilkins
Beste İşleyen
Saskia Bonjour
Farid Boussaid
Tasniem Anwar
Conny Roggeband
Jana Krause
Lucy Hall
Javier Garcia-Bernardo
Anne Louise Schotel
Mehdi Parvizi Amineh
Evelyn Ersanilli
Jeroen Doomernik
Natalie Welfens
Barbara Koole
Judith de Jong
Ugur Aytac
Serena Cruz
Joost Berkhout
Dawid Walentek
Gijsbert van Iterson Scholten
Marieke de Goede
Ellis Aizenberg
Isabella Rebasso
Liza Mügge
Daniel Mügge
Rocco Bellanova
Sander Mensink
Carola Westermeier
Hannah Werner
Afsoun Afsahi
Linet Durmuşoğlu
Anja van Heelsum
Astrid Bodini
Sonja Evaldsson Mellstrom
Theresa Leimpek
Dimitris Bouris
Franca van Hooren
Johan Oolsthorn
(Ana) Miškovska Kajevska
Ursula Daxecker
Theresa Kuhn
Diliara Valeeva
Nel Vandekerckhove
Julian Gruin
Imke Harbers
Norah Schulten
Sanne van Oosten
Hayley Kelsall
Eric Schliesser
Martijn Dekker
Eline Westra
Anne Kervers
Grace Coert
Mira Burmeister-Rudolph
Anneroos Planqué-van Hardeveld
Gabriel Ramirez Acevedo
Matthijs Rooduijn
Kristin Cain
Gordon Arlen
Eeefje Steenvoorden
Ebe Ouattara
Philip Schleifer
Milan Babic
Armèn Hakhverdian
Geert Lutejin
Anna Salden
Daan Tillie
Jonas Fitzler
Floris de Krijger
Aldert van Dam
Tess Czerski
Sarah Poss
Marieke Bakker
Nicky Westerkamp
Dagmar Punter
Pepijn Maas
Anthropology
Julie McBrien
Barak Kalir
Tina Harris
Hayley Murray
Noëlle Steneker
Peter Miller
Cristóbal Bonelli
Annerienke Fioole
Shanshan Lan
Else Vogel
Janus Oomen
Anne de Jong
Gezina Oorthuys
David Feenstra
Janine Häbel
Ward Berenschot
Cecilia Vergnano
Joop de Jong
Sasha N. Kruger
Muriël Kiesel
Francio Guadeloupe
Kristine Krause
Erella Grassiani
Rahil Roodsaz
Anja Hiddinga
Rachel Spronk
Raviv Litman
Vincent de Rooij
Shanshan Lan
Apostolos Andrikopoulos
Willy Sier
Jordi Halfman
Niko Besnier
Luisa Steur
Milena Veenis
Eileen Moyer
Bregje de Kok
David E Bukusi
Tusajigwe Erio
Chia-Shuo Tang
Lucy W. Mung'ala
Katlego Disemelo
Emily Yates-Doerr
Carolyne Egesa
Human Geography, Planning and International Development
Nanke Verloo
Mieke Lopes Cardozo
Federico Savini
Luca Bertolini
Rivke Jaffe
Hebe Verrest
Dennis Arnold
Jolien Groot
Carolina Frossard
Daniel Sloman
Debra Soloman
Daan Bossuyt
Ricardo Fuentealba
Virginie Mamadouh
Yves van Leynseele
Justus Uitermark
Anouk Kootstra
Wouter van Gent
Sofie te Wierik
Cody Hochstenbach
Kim van Winsen
Iris van Urk
Esther Miedema
Maryam Babur
Sociology
Sarah Bracke
Pamela Prickett
Marci Cottingham
Tania Huijben
Margriet van Heesch
Bram Lancee
Evelien Geerts
Marguerite van den Berg
Stephanie Steinmetz
Anna Esther Younes
Patrick Brown
Andrea Forster
Afra Foli
Milio van de Kamp
Robby Davidson
Anastasiya Halauniova
Fenna Smits
Ceylin Idel
Dragana Stojmenovska
Anna Wallis
Bo Paulle
Kobe de Keere
Sherria Ayuandini
Luis Hernández Aguilar
Phie van Rompu
Dolly Loomans
Simona Vezzoli
Marte Kuijpers
Suzanne de Leeuw
Gerben Moerman
Jan Willem Duyvendak
Myra Bosman
Hein de Haas
Yannis Tsaninis
Marie-Louise Janssen
Josien Aerts
Michiel Stapper
Christian Broër
Berfin Yurdakul
Christophe Janietz
Sherilyn Deen
Janna Besamusca
Stefano Giani
Berna Toprak
Lou Mousset
Laila Wiersma
Floris Mosselman
Minke Hajer
Katharina Stuckradt
Olga Sezneva
Sara Geven
Thijs Bol
Paula Thijs
Anne-Marie van Huls
Institute of Political Science (Leiden University) - In alphabetical order
Amanda Aronsson
Ariane Berends
Ingrid van Biezen
Simon Chauchard
Juliana Chueri
Matt DiGiuseppe
Thijs van Dooremalen
Adeel Hussain
Corinna Jentzsch
Kevin Köhler
Hilde van Meegdenburg
Martijn Mos
Katharina Natter
Simon Otjes
Francesco Ragazzi
Alexander Schilin
Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
Tom Theuns
Vassiliki Tsagkroni
Claire Vergerio
Josh Walmsley
Carina van de Wetering
