Cutting edge education, rigorous research, and an abiding dedication to social justice form the pillars undergirding all that we do. Our approach is rooted in the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”). Our faculty, staff, and students commit themselves to eradicating injustice, alleviating suffering, combating racism, rectifying systemic inequities, and promoting full and fair access to opportunity in all sectors and strata of society. ~ CSSW Mission Statement
The Columbia School of Social Work (“CSSW”) infrastructure and decorative choices stand in stark contrast to New York City, even more to the vibrant murals and multicultural diversity of Harlem. The walls are white and sterile, and the only source of warmth and creativity is on a TV screen that cycles too quickly to read. Despite being within the rich intermingling of cultures from all over the world, the CSSW somehow successfully achieves the waiting room aesthetic through every part of its domain. We quickly learned how the CSSW building was merely a physical manifestation of its pedagogy; how it was a proclamation that diversity was a topic of discussion, not a value to embody.
The CSSW pridefully proclaims a mission of anti-racism and social justice. However, it reproduces racial trauma in its classrooms, curriculum, and relationships with the surrounding communities. In this op-ed, we identify where the CSSW fails to live up to its mission, how it can do better, and why it must do better.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Only three months into our program, we are already experts at navigating phantom allyship and deciphering false promises perpetuated by the CSSW. The racial tension in all of our classes is palpable. More often than not, when students of color speak about their lived experiences of racism and oppression, the white students remain silent. This is not out of reverence, but deep discomfort. The grand canyon stands between us and the white wealthy students who met their first Black person on their journey to discover themselves and attempt to do “good”.
Unfortunately, the CSSW uses this state of ignorance as the starting point for teaching about anti-racist practices. The silence, and the instructors’ passivity in that silence, demonstrates how Black and brown experiences are taboo, while white students’ ability to reconcile those experiences is desirable intellectual property labeled as ‘processing’ and ‘learning milestones’. For the purpose of their intellectual development, our trauma, memories, and emotional labor are systematically requisitioned as course material. The education the CSSW so proudly presents is parasitic. Too often, the core curriculum invests too much in creating safe spaces for white students to ‘discover’ racism, at great detriment to the education of Black and brown students who don’t need a graduate-level class to understand what they experience on a daily basis.
The Need for Black Leadership
Apart from our political climate, a major contributor to the decline of safe spaces for people of color is the lack of Black leadership in the CSSW. Professors and administrative leaders, at the very least, have the responsibility to check racist, oppressive, and other unacceptable behavior the moment it comes to their attention. Students should be expected to do the same within and outside of the CSSW. However, the CSSW has normalized having white people who are not social workers run the School of Social Work. As a result, there are no Black leaders in tangible positions of power with experience in social work to model what anti-racism looks like in practice; someone who can and will hold everyone accountable.
Accountability is necessary in every event that perpetuates systemic harm and oppression. It cannot merely be a bureaucratic mechanism to tout a fraudulent message of diversity and inclusion. The CSSW has primarily taken the approach of believing privileged students in proximity to whiteness when they express discomfort, while demanding Black and brown students to prove their suffering time and time again. It is for this reason that students can comfortably say the n-word and derogatory slurs in class. It fosters a culture where white students are very comfortable critiquing the core curriculum for spending too much time on race. It creates a space where white students are empowered to report faculty of color because they know the CSSW will believe them at their word and provide no due process. It builds safe spaces for white students to role play as single Black moms with crack addictions. It creates devastating hostile racial tensions with collateral damage that students and faculty of color have to deal with. Therefore, the CSSW must make Black leadership the norm rather than the exception. We need leaders who have survived oppression, and who see accountability as a necessary structural disruption and will conduct transparent investigations, build safety for people of color, and are willing to sacrifice prestige for integrity. The CSSW should take this call to action as an ethical invitation to place power in the hands of marginalized people and realize its mission of anti-racism and social justice.
Next Steps
When the CSSW creates safe spaces, they often forget to ask this fundamental question: safe for who? In the midst of the legal demolition of DEI, we have forgotten that safe spaces were intended for people of color and members of marginalized communities to escape the racist institutions and people who persistently chip away at their spirit and identity. The current political administration has distorted this intent, but it is the responsibility of the CSSW to push back. It is incomprehensibly disconcerting for the oldest social work program in the country to take the role of a doormat.
The CSSW has so many resources and some of the greatest minds in the field. Surely, there are creative ways to create spaces for students of color that do not violate the present laws. There must be methods to encourage professors to facilitate class in a manner that does not coddle white students and rejects their tendency to view themselves as the default. The CSSW should avoid thinking of bureaucracy as a necessary evil and reevaluate its grievance procedure to protect those most vulnerable. It should hire faculty and administrators that are willing to protect Black and brown students. But none of this is feasible, without demolishing and reimagining an environment at the CSSW that isn’t based in fear and doesn’t coddle white supremacy.
The CSSW is 127 years old. It has survived world wars, economic crises, pandemics and so much more. We are quite sure it will continue to survive. The question is, how do they want to survive? If the CSSW continues with this abhorrent behavior, its administrators, faculty, and students will likely look at this moment in time and be embarrassed and ashamed.
We are not asking for much, or anything more than what we deserve. We are asking for the CSSW to make good on what it has already promised but consistently failed to deliver. If the administrative leadership at the CSSW are not willing to make immediate changes, the very least they can do is stop being deceptive on their mission statement and grant students of color the decency of knowing their options before they commit their time, emotional labor, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to an institution that could not care less about them.