Brittany Britto Nov. 12, 2020
Prairie View A&M University has gotten the green light to open a race and justice center that will seek to address bias and ensure that people of color are treated fairly under the law. The Texas A&M University System’s board of regents on Thursday approved plans to establish the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice as a hub for learning, research and activism. Simmons has led Prairie View A&M since 2017.
Starting next year, the center will feature leadership training on inclusion; support for scholarship and research on areas of injustice crucial for policymakers; and educational programs on bias and inclusivity for students, government officials, organizations and the public.
Endowed political science professor Melanye Price will lead the center, which will implement a required course on the history of race, class and gender in the United States for all incoming students.
Other plans include a research fellowship program, which will invite scholars from around the world to study, work and research on campus, and an “activist in residence” to educate and build on students’ history of political engagement. The goal is to “encourage teaching and scholarship that contributes positively to overturning systemic biases that impede the ability of minorities and other groups to be accorded their full rights under the U.S. Constitution,” Simmons said in a written statement.
Simmons first announced the center in a heartfelt open letter to the community in June following the death of George Floyd, a former Third Ward resident who died when a Minneapolis police office knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes during an arrest in May. She felt that considering the public outrage, riots, marches and uprisings in Houston and around the country, a proactive response was needed.
“When I first proposed the center, I was concerned about the state of race relations in the country and our community,” Simmons said. “Having grown up in a deeply segregated South and understanding the corrosive effects of these kinds of things, I really wanted to help both our students understand the history here and to learn how to manage through these difficult conversations that we’re having.”
She continued, “That was the whole purpose — to do our civic duty and help the region and country deal with a very difficult issue, to help our students who are going through what in previous generations we’ve gone through and more or less managed through. Now it’s their turn to figure out what’s occurring and not be discouraged by it.” Simmons said the center will aim to assist the community — including police agencies and legislators — by bringing in scholars to discuss history so that society can avoid repeating past mistakes, particularly with regard to racial injustice.
Price regards the approval of the center, which happened within six months, as a major win for an institution that has put in decades of work into these very subjects. “There are a lot of centers dedicated to issues related to race and racism, but we think one of the things we have is the unique advantage of being an historically black college,” Price said. “… We have a vested interest in not just mitigating but eradicating racial discrimination because we go through the effort of training students to be excellent.”
Aside from educating students and engaging them with activists and scholars, she said, the public and outside organizations will benefit from the center’s work, its speaker series and its diversity and inclusion trainings. “We’ll offer individual coaching as a way of saying, ‘We’ve prepared our students for the workplace. Let’s make sure that workplace is open and empowering for them,” Price said. “…Why spend all this time encouraging them, telling them they can go wherever they want when a simple police stop can change that?”
The community was the scene of a racially charged controversy five years ago when Sandra Bland, 28, a Black alumna returning to work for Prairie View A&M, was pulled over for an alleged traffic violation and jailed after a heated confrontation with a white state trooper. She was found hanged in her jail cell days later, a death ruled a suicide. The trooper was fired after he was accused of lying about the incident.
A new honor, the “Sandra Bland/Robbie Tolan Award,” will be created to acknowledge the important work of activists. In addition to Bland, the award will bear the name of Robbie Tolan, a young, unarmed Black man who was shot by police in the driveway of his family’s Bellaire home in 2008. Tolan survived.
The center has already received donations from multiple sponsors, including a $1 million personal donation from HEB Chairman Charles Butt. Simmons declined to provide the total amount raised so far, but confirmed that millions have been raised. The university is striving to raise additional money from grants and outside funds or private organizations, Simmons and Price said.
“I’m so amazed because I sat down to write a letter to my community to try to bring some light at a very dark time, and I was shocked to see people all around the country, picking up the letter to see how they could be helpful,” Simmons said.“Somehow, it struck a nerve, and we’ve seen tremendous support. Support is still coming in.”
Simmons also announced this year that the university will create a standing committee to recommend steps to address social inequities that students might encounter, including police misconduct, discrimination and voter suppression — an issue that students have wrestled with in the city of Prairie View in the past.
Some work has already started. Price has hosted symposiums and virtual programs and has written opinion pieces in hopes of educating the community and promoting thought and dialogue about race relations and history. Aspects of the introductory course are already incorporated in many existing classes, Simmons said, and officials have drafted a policy document for legislators.
Simmons, a native of Grapeland, Texas, served as president of Brown from 2001 to 2012 and as president of Smith College from 1995 to 2001. She grew up in Houston’s Fifth Ward and graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School before receiving degrees from Dillard University in New Orleans and Harvard University.
brittany.britto@chron.com
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