UC Berkeley black students demand fixes to 'hostile’ climate

Members of the UC Berkeley Black Student Union’s demands committee gather on the roof at Afro House to discuss strategy on Monday. The group wants administrators to improve life for the university’s black students. less Members of the UC Berkeley Black Student Union’s demands committee gather on the roof at Afro House to discuss strategy on Monday. The group wants administrators to improve life for the university’s black ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close UC Berkeley black students demand fixes to 'hostile’ climate 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

Black students at UC Berkeley often feel isolated and even oppressed, says a campus group that wants the nation’s premier public university to step up recruitment of African American students and improve support for them.

So in the time-honored tradition of Berkeley activism, the Black Student Union hammered out 10 demands, delivered them to the chancellor, and set a deadline to meet them.

“If we do not receive a written response from Chancellor (Nick) Dirks addressing in detail each of our individual demands as they were presented, by 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 17, we will understand that the Chancellor has not prioritized the dire needs of Black students on this campus,” the students wrote in a press release.

The demands include hiring nine people, including two black psychologists experienced in racial discrimination and advisers to recruit and mentor black students and student athletes; creating an African American Student Resource Center; and — in a different vein — renaming a building after Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther and the first woman on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists.

To the students, Shakur is no terrorist. She’s a victim and ally who gives voice to their pain.

The student group first presented the list on Feb. 13 to Dirks, Provost Claude Steele, and Nzingha Dugas, director of African American Student Development.

Chancellor’s letter

Dirks wasn’t there on March 6 when the students met with Steele and Gibor Basri, vice chancellor for equity and inclusion. But he told the students in a March 10 letter that more advisers have been hired in the Athletic Study Center, a recruitment coordinator is being hired, and that the campus will replace grant funding for two programs — including “Getting into Graduate School,” a pipeline for black students to earn advanced degrees. (The Black Student Union wants that budget doubled.)

“Too many students have told us about being excluded from study groups, ignored during class discussions, verbally harassed at parties and social events, and feeling, in a general sense, vulnerable, isolated, and invisible,” Dirks wrote the students. “This is something we deplore.”

He said a campus survey last year revealed that black students “feel the least respected of any group on campus.”

As for the Tuesday deadline, the chancellor’s March 10 letter stands as his response, a spokesman said. As for renaming Barrows Hall, he said, “No comment.”

The Black Student Union is considering how best to respond.

Of the 36,204 students enrolled at Berkeley last year, 1,257, slightly more than 3 percent, were black, including 392 graduate students, according to a UC summary. Dozens are members of the Black Student Union.

Dirks told the group he is developing “a major campus initiative” to support the black community. The idea, he said, is to increase the “critical mass” of black students, faculty and senior staff; ensure they feel supported and respected; and improve communication.

Students frustrated

But students in the Black Student Union said they found Dirks’ response frustrating.

Not only did the chancellor “default” on the March 6 deadline they gave him to respond to the 10 demands, they said, but the letter he sent four days later failed to address each one and should not have delegated responsibilities to vice chancellors and the provost.

“We will persevere until we get what we need and what we deserve,” Gabby Shuman, co-chair of political affairs for the Black Student Union, said in the press release. She called the state of black students, staff and faculty on campus “an emergency situation requiring immediate attention.”

Cori McGowens, also in the group, told The Chronicle that “trying to excel academically is immensely difficult while coping with the issue of antiblackness on campus.”

“It troubles me that I have already been told countless times that antiblackness is not an issue to discuss within the context of the American political system,” said McGowens, a junior majoring in political science. “My professors and graduate-student instructors have told me that I shouldn’t bring up the politics of race and the reality of my black experience.”

All but one of the demands directly addresses the well-being of students. The other seeks to rename Barrows Hall — which houses Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies and African American Studies— for Shakur, who was convicted in 1977 of first-degree murder in the 1973 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpik. She escaped from prison in 1979 and was granted political asylum in Cuba in 1984, where she has lived for more than 30 years. Two years ago, the FBI placed Shakur on its Most Wanted Terrorist List and doubled the reward for her capture to $2 million.

In 2013, Shakur declared her innocence and called her trial a legal lynching by an all-white jury.

The students call Shakur “an icon of resistance within oppressed communities (who) represents Black resilience in the face of unadulterated state-sanctioned violence.”

Barrows’ legacy

David Prescott Barrows, an anthropologist, served as president of the University of California from 1919 to 1923. A UC Berkeley research paper from 2014 says that when the regents argued against the rising population of Asian and other non-Euro American immigrants at UC, “Barrows offered a formal plea for cultural diversity among the university’s student population.”

The paper does conclude that, “in most areas of university management, Barrows was arguably inept and his tenure, as a result, was short.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: nasimov@sfchronicle.com

Black Student Union’s 10 demands

Open an African American Student Development Resource Center with event space to help improve black students’ relatively low graduation rate of 77 percent.

Allocate $300,371 to hire two black admissions staff members who specialize in recruiting black students.

Allocate $113,932 for a program director to help with outreach and retention efforts done by student volunteers who say they are overburdened by the work.

Hire two black psychologists who understand “the racially hostile campus climate at this university.”

Hire two black development advisers to mentor and provide academic guidance for black athletes.

Double the budget for the “Getting into Graduate School” mentorship program.

Immediately create a committee to recommend, by April 8, ways to aggressively recruit and retain black staff and faculty.

Rename Barrows Hall “Assata Shakur Hall.”

Fully fund the American Cultures and Engaged Scholarship program, and hire two staff members for it.

Top administrators and black student groups will meet together at least once a semester.