On March 17-18, 2022, the Department of History and African American Studies Program hosted a two-day critical university studies symposium focused on the legacies of slavery and settler colonialism within American universities. With the support of Boston University’s American Studies Program, Boston University Center for the Humanities, Great Topics and Emerging Scholars Programs, and Departments of English, Political Science, and Sociology, the symposium revealed the hidden histories of various campuses and sparked change-oriented discussion.
Attendees heard from historian and keynote speaker Craig Wilder of MIT, along with a diverse array of scholars from universities across the United States, including Boston University’s own Paula Austin and Ibram X. Kendi.
Speakers reflected on U.S. universities’ participation in settler colonialism and inequitable, racially discriminatory practices throughout history. Investigating the historical role of universities in establishing and maintaining discriminatory systems also involved recognizing the continued impacts of those unjust systems on current pedagogy and university policies. Scholars spoke to the need to understand and address past injustices within academia during their presentations, as well as in the roundtable discussions that concluded each day of the symposium.
The critical university studies symposium empowered the audience through its honest examination of historical truths. By bringing together scholars from across the nation, the symposium tackled the question of how to move forward and bring equity to educational institutions with both care and courage.