Dean Merit Janow, 

Thank you for convening this space today for us to come together as a community to talk about the most recent tragic deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, their respective grand jury trials, and the social and policy issues they have highlighted. 

You proudly promote SIPA as being "the most global public policy school, where an international community of students and faculty address world challenges”; equality and justice are in fact world challenges. The grand jury decisions and the injustices against Michael Brown and Eric Garner are the most recent examples of these global challenges - and they are playing out in our own backyard. 

These events have provided the SIPA administration and faculty with an opportunity to act on the goals that you espouse for this school. Yet, the SIPA administration and faculty has failed to act on what it teaches its students daily, in its noticeable silence and utter apathy for this obvious policy issue. 

As policy makers in training, we chose to come to SIPA because of the school’s location in New York, because of the faculty and alumni who are leading names in tackling global issues - including inequality - and because of the long history SIPA, as an institution, has in shaping policy debates. 

Throughout this semester, the SIPA administration and faculty have had unlimited opportunities to add their voices to the intellectual and policy debate on a number of issues from arbitrary killings, to continued socioeconomic inequality, to the discriminatory criminal justice system. This could have been done through convening policy debates, not unlike those hosted daily on the 15th floor, or writing public commentary in national and international media. Additionally, our faculty could have raised these issues in the classroom as a key policy moment for discussion. At the most basic level, a statement could have been written to students that the administration is at least aware of these issues. Yet, the SIPA administration and faculty chose to remain silent. 

As students of color and allies we have been deeply affected by the recent events in Ferguson, in New York, and across the country. Our colleagues at Columbia Law School stated it best “As people of color, we have always had to maintain an awareness of the ways in which our bodies are policed by the state, are under constant threat of violence, and the ways in which we make sacrifices within the institutions of which we are a part in hopes of making the passage through this world, of our bodies and bodies like ours, easier.” 

We carry several identities, despite our trauma, as SIPA students and student leaders of color, we still bear the burden of these mobilizing efforts. To expect us to operate business as usual in the face of consistent traumatization is unfair and insensitive to student needs. To expect us to carry on as students while being inadvertently tasked with educating the disinvested administration and faculty about domestic race issues and their policy implications is unfair. To expect us to be used in your marketing efforts, via the website and brochures, yet, not acknowledge our pain is unfair. We will no longer accept your inaction. 

Today, we hold you, Dean Janow, SIPA’s administration and faculty accountable for the disheartening silence. It has left students of color and allies feeling further marginalized and devalued. It should not have taken immense student pressure to convene this forum. The devaluation of our black and brown bodies can no longer be ignored. 

These recent events have called us to reflect on the causes of the silence from you and the SIPA administration and faculty. We can’t help but wonder if the lack of diversity within our faculty and administration allow for these issues to be ignored. A brief analysis of the core faculty list on the SIPA website disturbingly shows:

- There are no African-American female core faculty

- Less than 25% of our core faculty are women & no new women have been hired in 2 years

- Only three core faculty are both female and persons of color - all are of Indian heritage

- Less than 18% of core faculty are people of color

- Of that group the vast majority, over 70%, are Asian

- Black and Latino faculty of color only represent 5% of the core faculty

- Only two core faculty are African-American, both of whom are male and one of whom is leaving at the end of the school year

- In general there is a lack of representation of core faculty that are African, Native American, or of Middle Eastern Descent 

As an international school, with a diverse student body, we understandably find these figures concerning. We feel that the institution we truly value is failing us. Therefore, we are asking for specific changes from you and your administration. We expect the following: 

1. Write a Terms of Reference, in consultation with students, for a Dean of Diversity position (tasked solely with this job) and fill this position by the start of the 2015-2016 school year.

2. Set SIPA-wide standards and targets for recruiting core female faculty and faculty of color by January 19th, the start of the next semester.

a) Publicly share with the student body, via email, the faculty recruiting targets for 2015-2016 school year by March 13th, before spring break.

3. Create a SIPA course on the intersectionality of race and policy for the 2015-2016 school year.

a) Assemble a student panel to inform the design of this course and the hiring of the professor who will teach it. 

 

We are optimistic that SIPA has the capacity to improve, otherwise we would not be so invested. However, we know this cannot be achieved until the experiences of its students of color are acknowledged and woven into the DNA of SIPA’s community. Further, the increase of diversity in our faculty affects the learning environment of all SIPA students, beyond students of color. 

SIPA must prioritize conversations in a way that equips its students to be competent policy leaders, now and in the future. This can be done by better listening to the needs of all of your students, spending time with us beyond the Town Hall meetings and setting standards for how a leading policy institution responds to and analyzes global crises such as the one we are currently living. 

We look forward to working with you to continue to make SIPA an even better policy institution and more welcoming place for students of color. 

Signed, 

• Alexandra Americanos, MIA‘16 
• Kyle Bibby, MPA ’14 
• Richard Scott Brookshire III, MPA ‘16 
• Darren Brown, MIA '16
• Rebekah Clark, MPA-DP ‘15 
• Nadiya Chadha, MPA ‘15 
• Loren Cobbs, MPA ‘15 
• Lauren Greubel, MPA ‘15
• Noemie Hailu, MIA '16 
• Morgan Miller, MIA ‘16 
• Kiara Reed, MBA/MIA ‘15 
• Nina Sawhney, MPA ‘15 
• Stephanie Shih, MIA ‘15 
• Krystal Tena, MIA ‘15 
• Li Zhou, MIA ‘15