Open Letter to President Bacow and Dean Gay from the Harvard Ethnic Studies Coalition
On December 2nd, 2019, we, the Harvard Ethnic Studies Coalition, launched our latest campaign for Ethnic Studies at Harvard with a sit-in at University Hall. Mobilized by the administration’s decision to deny Professor Lorgia Garcia Peña’s tenure, we took over the building for 48 minutes, representing the 48+ year fight for Ethnic Studies on this campus.
Our demands were sent to President Bacow, Provost Garber, and Dean Gay in the form of a statement signed by, at the time, nearly 200 members of the Harvard community. We gave them 48 hours to provide a public explanation for their decision to deny Professor Garcia Peña’s tenure and to respond to the rest of our demands for the formal creation of an overdue Ethnic Studies department at Harvard.
The 48 hours were up on December 4th, and we received a response from President Bacow and Dean Gay. Neither response was satisfactory.
President Bacow shut down our request for an explanation of why Professor Garcia Peña did not receive tenure by hiding behind the secrecy and red tape of Harvard’s bureaucracy. He claimed he could not release an explanation for Professor García Peña’s tenure denial because the tenure review process is confidential.
Given the inherently biased nature of the tenure review process, we reiterate our demand for an investigative committee to review Professor García Peña’s case for procedural errors, prejudice, and discrimination. As Professor Garcia Peña has stated herself in a response to Dr. Albert Laguna’s, another Ethnic Studies professor, tenure denial at Yale, “White supremacy in these institutions bleeds through the photos of white men which hang in the halls of the university.” Harvard is not spared from this analysis. The multiple racist incidents on campus this semester, both towards Professor García Peña and the community more broadly, are proof of this.
This lack of transparency in the tenure process is what has allowed administrators to undermine the work of scholars from underrepresented backgrounds without any accountability or repercussions; it leaves community members powerless in challenging the institution’s otherwise absolute authority. This is clear from the fact that Professor Garcia Peña’s tenure denial is one in a long line of unjust actions taken against scholars of color to keep them silenced and powerless. The work of scholars like Professor Garcia Peña threatens institutions held up by the same white supremacy that scholars of Ethnic Studies seek to challenge and deconstruct.
Professor Garcia Peña is the only professor who offers regular Latinx Studies classes to undergraduates and the only Latinx Studies professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Though there are other professors in Latinx Studies in other parts of the University, such as Professor Mayra Rivera of the Divinity School, who have had tremendous contributions, they are being overworked to support students. They also highlight the need for an Ethnic Studies department.
Dean Gay also responded to our demands for an Ethnic Studies department in a separate, but equally inadequate, email, citing her alleged support and commitment to advocating on behalf of Ethnic Studies. Completely ignoring our demands for the formal establishment of an Ethnic Studies Department, Dean Gay said that they have launched a cluster hire for 4 faculty members.
Upon further interrogation, the irony in Dean Gay’s argument becomes obvious. After all, Professor Garcia Peña was one of the few members of the ad-hoc search committee created specifically for this “cluster hire.” In the months since Dean Gay announced her commitment to Ethnic Studies, there have been more losses of Ethnic Studies faculty than there have been gains. Professor Garcia Peña’s tenure denial puts us at a net negative in terms of ethnic studies faculty and resources, even compared to where we were a few years ago. Despite continuous promises made by the administration over the years, we have seen no progress.
In past meetings about Ethnic Studies with Dean Gay, students and alumni have stressed the importance of hiring faculty into a department where they are properly supported and compensated for their labor. The only way to do this is through the formal establishment of an Ethnic Studies Department. If the administration continues to hire faculty into separate departments without adequate support or scholarly community, faculty will continue to leave, and Harvard will continue struggling to achieve the robust Ethnic Studies education that it so desperately needs.
Over the past year, we have seen Asian American Studies and Muslim American Studies professors leave the University after being declined tenure or choosing to leave themselves after not receiving the support they need. We need an Ethnic Studies department that supports these scholars, puts them in conversation with one another, and retains them by making them feel welcome.
We believe these issues are not separate. We can’t separate Professor Garcia Peña’s tenure denial from the larger fight for Ethnic Studies at this institution, despite what the administration says. Dean Gay has publicly confirmed that she has the structural power to create an Ethnic Studies department immediately, but refuses to do so before hiring faculty to teach and advise through it. We believe that the hiring of professors and the creation of a department must be simultaneous and non-negotiable.
With Professor Garcia Peña’s tenure denial, and the responses from President Bacow and Dean Gay, it is clear that Ethnic Studies is not going to be created anytime soon, especially if we rely on an institution that has broken promises time and time again, or on administrators who tout a false diversity in an effort to present Harvard as a welcoming place for prospective students, donors, and the general public.
President Bacow and Dean Gay have refused to substantively engage with our demands, they have continuously dismissed and underestimated us. An institution that cannot recognize its shortcomings is an institution that can’t properly serve or educate its students.
48 years is more than enough. If the university refuses to change, then we will continue our fight to change it, even more vigorously than before. We demand to be seen, to be heard, to be represented. We demand an Ethnic Studies department with diverse faculty, and we demand it now. Until our demands are met we will continue to mobilize with fervor.
