Going big on anti-racism

[Hibush]

There is a lot of talk at universities about how to take on anti-racism initiatives appropriate to the school. The University of Michigan is advertising a faculty cluster hire that is explicitly focused on anti-racism. The hiring is not narrowly specifying a discipline for each position, but broadly in the role of tech in society. They are hiring with tenure. That investment is a significant one by an influential school.

This position is part of a new University of Michigan faculty cluster focused on Racial Justice & Technology, and will include three faculty from the Ford School of Public Policy, the School of Information, and the Stamps School of Art and Design, with additional support for cross-school collaborations within the cluster. The three-faculty cluster coalesces an emerging interdisciplinary field of research that centers structural racism produced and reproduced by information technology, design, and technology policies.

The cluster is part of a university-wide faculty hiring initiative in anti-racism. Over the next three years, the university will hire at least 20 faculty members with scholarly expertise in racial inequality and structural racism.

I bet my school's senior administrators are considering how to compete with that. What kind of institution does this strategy make sense for? Who will try to copy and fail because it's the wrong place? A lot of places just don't have the interest. What about places without the resources to follow suit, but serving a community that would benefit or be able to implement?

[Hegemony]

The students tend to be very interested in this field, in my experience of students right now. When I did our graduate admissions last year, the majority of applicants were interested in issues of race. Whether there will be jobs for that many when the time comes, I do not know — but we already know there won't be academic jobs for many no matter what field they're in. Anyway, my guess is that the classes these new faculty will teach will be in demand.