Dive Brief:
- As Princeton makes headlines for considering the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from its campus, Brown has pledged $100 million over the next 10 years to address diversity and racism in the face of student protests.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that Occidental College has also agreed to promote the chief diversity officer to a vice president-level position, create a black studies minor, and increase funding for minority student groups and services, though it says it will not force President Jonathan Veitch to resign.
- Backlash to Princeton’s promises brought criticism on Facebook and in a petition, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, online activity by the “Illini White Student Union” is creating tension on that campus about the line between safety concerns and free speech.
Dive Insight:
In other campus news, a group of black ministers in New Jersey are calling for the resignation of the Kean University president over his handling of a threat against the lives of black students on Twitter. They say he did not take the threat seriously enough, though the university disagrees.
At Towson University, near Baltimore, a sit-in prompted interim president Timothy Chandler to pledge his support for black student concerns and to move forward on diversity issues, including hiring more tenured and tenure-track faculty, diversifying tenure committees, and creating a new course requirement for a class on American race relations. Princeton, too, committed to considering a new diversity requirement for students.
Campus activism does not seem to be slowing down since students prompted high-level resignations at the University of Missouri, launching a cascade of solidarity protests nationwide.