Guidelines for Senators and Guests at the Town Hall:
1. Show Respect: - Always treat everyone involved with respect, regardless of differing opinions. - Refrain from cutting off others during their conversations.
2. Adhere to Designated Speaking Time: - Ensure your comments stay within the 1-2 minute timeframe set by Srigouri. - This guarantees that all individuals have an opportunity to engage in the conversation.
3. Emphasize Constructive Discussion: - This town hall aims to cultivate a positive and solution-focused dialogue regarding the effects of the court’s ruling to overturn affirmative action on our community. - Express your thoughts and inquiries in a manner that fosters an uplifting and progressive dialogue.
4. Engage in Active Listening: - Approach conversations with an open mind and be prepared to thoughtfully consider diverse viewpoints. - When replying, please take into account the various experiences discussed during the town hall.
5. Stay on Topic: - Make sure your comments are relevant to the discussion: the effects of the affirmative action ruling on admissions, diversity, and equity at the institution. - Stay focused on the main topic and avoid bringing in unrelated subjects.
6. Engage with Solutions: - When offering feedback, strive to incorporate constructive suggestions for how the community and institution can progress in response to the court decision.
7. Maintain Respect: - Avoid personal attacks, inflammatory language, or accusatory comments. This space is intended for respectful and meaningful dialogue.
By adhering to these principles, we can foster a respectful, productive, and impactful dialogue that drives meaningful change. I appreciate your cooperation!
Agenda and Minutes:
- Opening and Guidelines (First 5 minutes)
- Brandon asked everyone to get the handouts that include the resolution, agenda and guidelines.
- Nasreen won’t be here today. Srigouri, Brandon, Nayshawn and Cynthia will lead the discussion.
- People are here to voice their concerns, so Srigouri asked everyone to share their resources. Srigouri re-emphasized the guidelines and asked everyone to be respectful to the guests.
- Cynthia thanked everyone for coming here for this important discussion. She wants to share some of the steps SGA has taken, ask questions so that we can get direct feedback on our initiatives and get ideas on our future plans. She will be opening up the floor to any guest who came today. We will be prioritizing the guests over SGA members to listen to their concerns.
- She mentioned the proposed survey that we hope to get feedback on. We are expecting guiding questions to improve these. The resolution will not be going to the student body only. It will also be sent to the administration and faculty, so President Daniels will receive it.
- Once guests volunteer, they will be added to the speaker list. If we have more time, we will allow more time. For now, we will keep the speaking time at 2 minutes.
- Student Contributions (45 mins)
- Gnagna pointed out that the connotations surrounding this problem have layers, specifically with regards to race and how admissions can view that. Due to this reason, she asked how we will discuss potential solutions to this.
- Cynthia emphasized that while we are aware that affirmative action restricts what the university can do, when looking at the data compared to other top institutions, we can see that for the most part they were able to maintain their numbers and even raise them. It’s not a matter of whether anything can be done. Things could have been done, but they weren’t done.
- Moses made a brief comment about some of the other institutions. According to his understanding, some of the other institutions (namely Yale, Princeton and Duke) have been sent letters by the Supreme Court to not destroy any evidence in admissions in order for investigation.
- Akosa criticized Moses’ words and asked him if this is a conjecture or reality.
- Moses said that it is unknown if the universities are raising numbers against the law; it is simply conjecture.
- As Steph asked to clarify what is expected to be talked about right now, Brandon and Cynthia clarified, adding that students can talk about actions they want to see from SGA or JHU Admissions.
- Steph was an FYM, so she got to see the entire freshman class. She saw how demographics changed over the years as she was an FYM for the past years. She could see how diverse they are. Her biggest issue was the gigantic switch in representatives for these minorities. Leaders of such organizations should be emphasizing diversity as our campus is built on diversity and is a mini version of the outside world. We exist there, so minorities should be included in such positions and we shouldn’t let these fields be white dominated. She thinks that we should advocate for the incoming freshmen after this class. It will never go back if that is the case. If we don’t do this, then we will lose that diversity.
- Akosa wants to ask a question about what SGA does, getting out of the general ignorance of what DEI means. In his words, “it has not been 15 minutes [since this town hall started] and another SGA senator stated that they believe that universities are breaking the law in order to maintain diversity efforts.”
- Srigouri and Brandon asked to have a productive and respectful discussion.
- Akosa said that there are people in this room who think that affirmative action didn’t affect them. He said that many of the people here would not be here if this decision was made years ago, like in 1924. This affects everyone. The institutions who achieve this exist and saying that they are breaking the law is disgusting. By saying so, he is not trying to be disrespectful.
- Kayla believes that we should target communities who are underrepresented. They are only able to go to a few schools. She mentions that there is talent in all different schools and they deserve to be recognized. She knows this situation as she’s from Baltimore and she saw this from her high school. She emphasized to us to be aware of the limited choices they have and do our best to support them.
- Ty’Shera said that SGA, who is supposed to be the voice of the students, should be the voice to tell admissions and President Daniels, taking what they say and bringing it to them. She said that if we are going to talk about this issue, we need to have a fine line and directives for what admissions should do. We should advise admissions and President Daniels and get out in the Baltimore community and advocate for students of color to apply to Hopkins.
- Brandon summarized what she said and asked if she wants us to go to admissions to enhance and increase the recruitment done to local Baltimore schools.
- Cassia said that this shouldn’t be done just in local Baltimore, but also in PG county. There are great schools there as well that don’t get admissions coming in.
- Akosa said that he doesn’t know what they are thinking while handling the admissions. He went to an all black high school; Hopkins never went to his school. USC and University of Maryland were doing events at his high school. Maryland has the most diversity in the east coast. There’s no reason why admissions look the way they do. We are allowing second groups to drop. International students' rate stayed the same. Most international students pay more to come here as it is not need blind for them. He believes that there’s a reason why Hopkins kept those statistics the same.
- Catalina said that while she doesn’t disagree, it is unfair to put more responsibility on Black and Brown students to push Hopkins students to make changes. Hopkins is a research university; they should have the resources to do the research and know what to do. It shouldn’t be on the student leaders, on us, to put on this weight and do this. While we are talking about what SGA students are doing for constructions, there wasn’t that same energy and concern for this which affects the whole student body and future things. Hopkins took a big advantage of pictures to advertise the diversity – even her photos were used to advertise the racial diversity of Hopkins, which is a shame in her words.
- Adding to Catalina’s point about black and brown students advocating for themselves, she said that Hopkins opens these forums and shuts them down. Our entire student body has been trying to connect with organizations, especially those for minority students. If we don’t have a community here, we won’t have strong organizations still standing or being built and organizing events. If students don’t feel represented, there will be nobody next to come. She highlighted that they are already the groups that get the least amount of postings from Hopkins administrators compared to every other group, although OLE and BSU and other organizations are doing a lot to work together. She doesn’t think that Hopkins has done anything to try to hear them. The whole reason why we are talking about this is because there is more to come, and we need to remember about this.
- Diamond talked about her experience before coming to Hopkins. She worked hard to come here. People commented that she only got in because she was Black, so she felt uncomfortable and unwelcomed and only reached comfort when black faculty and staff comforted her. She believes that admissions must work on emphasizing the importance of this not only in Black spaces but in every space.
- Ty’Shera asked if we could have a conversation with admissions.
- Cynthia said that we have sent an email, yet have not received anything back but we are trying.
- Ty’Shera asked if student organizations can support this email as well with SGA. She said that they are not trying to degrade what SGA has to say, but that they would rather admissions hear what they have to say directly as it might get lost in translation.
- Cynthia encouraged RSOs to send their own emails and cc SGA. She asked everyone who’s not in the GroupMe to join. SGA will give the updates from GroupMe.
- Brandon wholeheartedly supports RSOs to send out their own emails.
- Kevin asked what are some steps that the university and SGA can do to achieve these goals.
- Diamond said that having organizations for minorities involved would help. She got SGA, LEED and HOP to help with an event in her organization. According to her, people need to learn about them and know why they should be here.
- Akosa thinks that we should also discuss how minorities are being treated on campus. How are departments looking out for all students? How are they catering this sentiment to underrepresented students whose needs are different? He highlighted that due to microaggressions received in class, students don’t feel comfortable discussing with their professors. Most black students have only a few faculty members that they can talk to about this. It is hard to search for these people. Majority are either not trained or are uncomfortable. This is a problem. Why are you at a liberal arts institution yet don’t have the capacity to talk about this?
- Ty’Shera answered a question Kevin asked. She said that there is a difference between words and actions: they may put out statements and say they care, but according to her, they truly don’t. The way that Hopkins can help minority students is by telling the truth, which is that these students are as smart and intelligent as other students, and standing on it. The fact that Hopkins didn’t stand on it is an issue. If students are paying to come to this school, and if it was the majority of students being impacted, it would have been a big change that Hopkins would have tried to push, such as the financial aid thing.
- Kylah wanted to share her perspective as an intern at the Gender and Sexuality Resources department at Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI). A professor was kicked out for writing the definition of privilege. She’s doing programming and they have to be really careful about how they are describing the events and she expressed that this wasn’t a thing two years ago. Kylah explained that they are not allowed to say “proudly black or proudly queer,” which she’s bringing up because the queer issues and racial issues are intersectional. Just this week, they wanted to organize a lecture named “I Am Not Your Negro,” a reference to the documentary with the same name. This event was also an LGBTQ+ event, but they had to water down the event and completely change the flyer. She said that it was disheartening and her boss was also very upset. They were targeting to have 200 people at Levering for this event and it turned into a 90 person event in Commons Salon C. This has been on her chest for a while. Responding to Brandon’s clarification question, she added that Gender and Sexuality Resources is now under Student Affairs and not CDI. She observed that they are prioritizing the Blue Jay Pride themes over being proud of being a woman, queer or black.
- Cynthia has been working at the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) since freshman year. They’ve been moved back and forth from Student Affairs for the last few years, and now they are under them again. This situation has also caused departments like OMA and CDI to no longer receive adequate funding for diversity. These organizations can’t provide funding as they didn’t receive funding themselves from Student Affairs this year. There are also ongoing conversations about changing the name of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion to something along the lines of “Community Space.” They are taking away the actual title.
- Brandon asked why they were moved to Student Affairs.
- Charles expressed that there was no discussion and it was just moved.
- Akosa believes that there is a general whitewashing trend going on, saying that Kylah’s example is the most disheartening thing, which he didn’t even know was happening. Referring to the documentary the lecture was on, he said that that manuscript is a groundbreaking piece of queer black literature. He believes that Hopkins is trying to create the “Blue Jay Culture” out of nothing. When universities create these cultures (like USC Trojans), they mainly use sports. He expressed that if the university really wants to create this culture, they should put that money into sports and make that a culture. However, by putting that into religious, cultural topics and watering down into putty versions of themselves, he highlighted that University won't accomplish anything. This issue is not just numbers; there are people who are studying these fields and they come to Hopkins to have these programs and make sure that Hopkins can see these views. Students need to see their identities represented in their community. He worked at OMA and described it as the most enriching thing where he made a lot of contributions. He said that Hopkins is trying to create Blue Jay Tuesday this, Blue Jay Corridor that… but changing the names of departments when it has been like that since they were first founded back in the 1990s is, to him, unreasonable. He questioned: Why do we need to stop publicizing a black community literature? Doesn’t the word inclusion mean everybody? He punctuated that students who do not feel like they are included exist. The reason why those faces are here are so that students can see them and feel included. It’s one thing to change the name, such as if CDI’s name was changed so that they don’t get targeted by institutions for having multicultural affairs departments, then that could be fair. However, renaming the department to protect it and changing the work the department does are different.
- Diamond built onto what Akosa said. She expressed that Hopkins is taking away their spaces and not including them in these new spaces.
- Mariel has been working at the admissions office for the past 4 years. She worries a lot for the next generation of students as she believes that it will be hard for them to find a community. Students and their parents are concerned. She wants to speak to them and talk about how it really is and that they will find a community they belong to.
- Steph expressed that there are multiple people who share the same feelings with students like Akosa. His frustrations are felt by a lot of these students at Hopkins: if we are not represented, we do not feel seen. We are able to come to these spaces because of the people who came before us. If students are not able to come to these spaces, if they stop having forums like this in SGA, it will diminish the whole community experience. The community is a large group of people, and as the amount of Black and Latino people decrease, that will only make it harder for them to continue building on these. It is easier for us than it is for them. They will be creating events for their two other friends to go to. If it’s a small Black community, then we will have an even less chance of having a Black Latino or Carribean student.
- Nayshawn asked the public if they have seen a decline in these membership numbers, to which all RSOs reported a decline in their membership numbers.
- Mariel forgot to add that in admissions, they put such an emphasis on diversity and other processes. They have panels specifically prepared for minorities, but to see that admissions did not respond to inquiries regarding the decline in minorities has been upsetting.
- Catalina spoke on behalf of her organization, which is a relatively small RSO consisting of Colombian students. According to her, one of the really beautiful things about Hopkins is being exposed to traditions that you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. According to her, the loss of diversity should take up the responsibility of keeping these alive.
- Jazz thanked everyone and asked what they want to see, expressing that SGA wants to bring support to everyone and that they are doing this with a purpose. She reiterated the public’s demand for Hopkins to reach out to high schools and make sure that Hopkins sees them. She wondered if we want to do just Maryland or is it about the whole world.
- Akosa said that Maryland is one thing. They put emphasis on it because they want to point out how lazy admissions is. He said that there should be some effort from there.
- Jazz understands that. On campus, the largest goal here is empowering students. Not all these students are being represented in the same way, it was something that was already an issue that we should be tackling. This is not just a tonight issue. This is not last week’s issue. This has been going on for the longest time. She hopes for joint support: What kind of events do you want to see from SGA and other RSOs that would empower your community? For outreach, she wondered how we can make sure that our campus is a place where everyone can feel a sense of belonging.
- Jade talked about visibility. She said that Diversity and Inclusion has been organizing workshops for first years all semester. She feels like when she asks the students if they have ever been to CDI, these kids are not being told to go to these places. Halfway through the semester, she still has to tell people where CDI is, which is worrying. She highlighted that this training used to be a requirement, where if you didn’t complete it, you couldn’t register for classes. Now, they removed that.
- Chizi has been an RA for the past 3 years and is the captain of a dance team. She can speak for the number of freshmen that she has seen. As a Wolman RA, she estimates that there were only one to two Black or Latinx per floor, which is 14 students in total. She’s been working with freshmen and building diversity has been different for her this year.
- Raven came from a predominantly white area (a rural town in Missouri), so coming to Hopkins she was really surprised and happy to see the representation of her own people. One thing we should emphasize to Hopkins is that if you look at the staff (like FFC, Nolan’s or shuttle drivers), they are mostly black. How are we going to have so many people that are of our race who are working in underpaid jobs? She believes that we should talk to administration and prioritize the representation in staff, students and other areas. University shouldn’t be waiting for our word to do something. They should have already had their own input if we are one of the leading educational institutions.
- Presentation of Survey and Resolution (30 minutes)
- Cynthia presented the resolution, which is an official recommendation from SGA to administration, similar to the one that was written for the construction. She read the resolution out loud. She also added that some RSOs put out statements and some even emailed the administration. Some of us received responses that they are working on it, yet got no details as to what these steps are even though one of their priorities is supposed to be transparency. She was careful about her language in this resolution and made sure to include numbers. We want to receive direct feedback as to what they think is good about it and what it is lacking. We might be able to move forward with this resolution next week.
- 2 minute speaking times and 30 minutes to focus on the resolution were allocated.
- Tarini asked to add “and student advisory board” to the title as it is really important to have both, which are two equally important things.
- Yashas suggested including some lived experiences and asking for increased funding for CDI (along with more transparency on this).
- Akosa emphasized the importance of organizing events that genuinely create an impact, rather than organizing several of the same event. He thinks that what we are looking for is policy. Events are great, but we have 400 student groups and 30 different departments doing events. We have had enough.
- Oluwakemi said that we should change the resolution to include that we have discussed with cultural groups and really represented all students in this, not just SGA. About lived experiences, she said that this is good for calling for action, but there is no legacy for student organizations. For example, she lived that experience, and saw less representation. Legacy of student organizations is that lots of us didn’t have to wait for numbers; we could just see it. We had so many people come to our events in the past, but now this is not the case. She believes that we need to, to some extent, emphasize what will happen to our communities if numbers keep decreasing.
- Catalina thinks that CDI funding is a good idea. Student organizations are not able to have the same extent of support anymore. She thinks that we should have more students deciding on these events as they understand students more. She’d rather have things that would make Hopkins feel like home; allowing students to decide on what would create community rather than imposing their own ideas would be a better idea. She called Hopkins to allow students to create these spaces.
- Stone asked to post the link with comment access to share with everyone. He added that from his past experience, adding a specific date works better when calling someone to action, like “until this date.”
- Cynthia asked Stone if he thinks it would be useful to say that we’ve already sent an email, to which Stone agreed, especially if this is being sent to the student body.
- Srigouri thinks that we should include more numbers. These are jarring to hear: talk about percentage decreases and total numbers and hone in on the fact that we have a lot of reactions from the minorities who are underrepresented here.
- Gnagna thinks that we should incorporate the visibility of the different offices, such as OMA and CDI. They have the BSU house in the basement of AMR2. The other thing I want to touch on is inciting advocacy and what advocacy actually means to the student body. There are a lot of spaces on campus that don’t understand what it means to come up and represent groups. She believes that this campus as a whole should know what it means to have diversity and inclusion, and by extension, having these offices available and open for the student body to see this.
- Cynthia asked if we should emphasize a deadline as we don’t want to leave an open deadline for them. For the survey for staff specifically, it is reasonable to have this done by the end of this semester, she wondered.
- Emma thinks that the language is very passive and to her, it seems like we are trying to not hurt their feelings. We should make the statement stronger and have firmer language.
- Ty’Shera expressed that due to the political temperature of Hopkins and the USA about being black, minorities are hesitant to talk strongly as she believes that when underrepresented groups do so, they get called aggressive. She also added that Hopkins did not do more to mediate the impact of the ruling. She thanked Cynthia for writing this and adores the idea of an advisory board.
- Brandon thinks that there are two things that should be added: recruitment and retention. They should be able to implement this and create changes while being transparent with their measures in Baltimore, Maryland and even across the world. With retention, it would increase funding for student organizations, especially with cultural organizations. It would keep in line with student organizations and what the university is trying to do. More funding for all RSOs but more so for cultural organizations would be necessary to include.
- Diamond asked the SGA leaders how many times President Daniels has been to their events. She said that administrators should be showing up to the events of their organizations as often as they show up to other events.
- Brandon talked about the Black alumni dinner. President Daniels was there for the first 15 minutes and gave a 5 minute long speech, where he basically stated that the numbers are not good but that they are working towards it. He said that having the president there should add more. This raised the idea of explaining that performative actions should not be taken by the administrators in the resolution.
- Alex said that when President Daniels sent the email out, no one read it. Due to this reason, he thinks that people might not read the second half, so he asked to include somewhere in the first part a sentence that shows that you will demand something. It shows that we will work on this.
- Tarini is not sure if this should be added to the resolution but she touched on the discrepancy between Baltimore schools and our outreach in Baltimore schools. From her experience, Hopkins is at every Baltimore school as a club, but there is no outreach. Why is a student able to get to these schools but administrators aren’t even trying to reach them? Why is it that people who get paid to outreach to these places can’t get outreach here?
- Jenny likes the idea of putting examples of how admins can do more. As someone coming from a community with underrepresented minorities (California, where she studied at a racially diverse school), she said that they didn’t know Hopkins but they knew Yale, so that shows we do less. She called for more outreach for Spanish speaking applicants and including more about identities, making people more comfortable about their identity around campus. She asked to push for more representation in faculty and staff. She added that they would feel like they belong more if our professors are Latino or Black.
- Moses believes that it is good that we talked about the budget with both the delay and the decrease. He also wonders why admins whose job is to get a bunch of student activities took a while to do it. Similarly, he asked to reconsider the ways that students can get funding. He said that they told him the legal ways and that he has been pushing questions. Regarding recruitment, if it would be possible to go everywhere to do recruitment, he thinks that they should actually be transparent about that.
- Tyler thanked everyone for coming. One thing he wants to talk about is to call President Daniels and other administrators. He thinks that we should extend our reach to those. Daniels’ agenda is mostly full with meetings with provosts and deans, so if we bring our concerns to these administrators, then they can talk about these with him and voice it.
- Gnagna wanted to touch on the fact that we should acknowledge how we see the effort, but it is not as impactful or impressive as it should be. It also sets a huge barrier for them. She expressed that it's hard to have them create a more tight-knit community with just their smaller community.
- Ty’Shera responded to the question of whether we should be asking Daniels to come to cultural events. She described Daniels’ visit to the meeting and then leaving in 15 minutes as his performativity, emphasizing that asking him to come to our events is begging. She said, “We won’t beg. If he’s not doing it now, then what will change when we ask him? We are not asking for anyone who doesn’t care about us to come to our events.”
- Diamond added that everybody should be coming to our events, not only administrators.
- Akosa questioned why he only sees representations in Africana Studies, CDI, Student Affairs and that’s it. How do you justify a university this large to have this many professors?
- Catalina thinks that under the town hall section it is important to add personal accounts, but it would not be the best use of this letter. Outside of the town hall, there should be additional pressure for presidents and deans to be at the town hall. She hopes that this would really help them understand the frustration and disillusionment with this. Also adding to the faculty point, she talked about how lots of faculty and staff are not well equipped to have conversations about diversity and other things. Especially for this past year, this was the first time she had a Latina PI. Welcoming these conversations is really important.
- Cynthia asked if we wanted President Daniels to be at the town hall, to which everyone said yes.
- Cynthia presented the survey, which she has been working on with Nayshawn. They have narrowed it down from 40 to 20 questions.
- Kevin pointed out some questions that were very similar.
- Ty’Shera thinks that question 16 is a risky question to ask. They might ask on what grounds. How would we know if we get more or less funding from a white organization? If we keep this statement, then Brandon (as SGA’s treasurer) would need to provide evidence.
- Yashas was confused about number 7 and asked for more explanation. Nayshawn responded that it is basically asking “Are you feeling supported by the administrations or resources provided to you as a student leader?” Language will be edited.
- Amy said that Instead of saying Latino and Black, can we just say underrepresented minorities.
- Tim asked how he could answer number 14 as someone who is not POC.
- Tyler suggested adding an N/A option.
- Amy said that we can ask the respondent to disclose their race if they would like.
- Diamond asked if we can add a question that asks if we’ve ever seen admin at cultural events.
- Stone talked about the underrepresentation in the faculty issue. He thinks that it is very important, but as of right now, we only represent issues for undergraduates. We should ask that question more and turn it into a student issue. We can’t advocate for changing their staffing policy but if the students bring it up then we can.
- Brandon opened the discussion in GroupMe and asked everyone to reach out to SGA senators if they would like.
- Alex said that there are no questions about spaces where you belong, expressing that they feel like they don’t have spaces where they can speak Spanish.
- Cynthia said that the incoming student center might be a counterargument from them.
- There were more minor edits suggested to the form, which were noted by Cynthia and Nayshawn.
- Next Steps and Action Plan (30 minutes)
- The survey and resolution will be finalized considering the feedback SGA received in this Communities of Color Forum.
- Closing Remarks (5 minutes)
- Brandon thanked Nayshawn and Cynthia for spearheading this initiative.
- Cynthia asked everyone to make sure that they are in GroupMe. They will work on these this week. Once they are ready, drafts will be sent to GroupMe.
- Brandon thanked everyone who came out and talked to the SGA.
- Student groups expressed that they want to see SGA’s apology on their Instagram, which will be arranged.