TASK FORCE ON ANTI-BLACK RACISM FINAL REPORT
As a result of calls echoed worldwide for systemic and structural change in the face of historical anti-Black racism and white supremacy, the President of Concordia University launched a Task Force on Anti-Black Racism in the fall of 2020. The Task Force was mandated to coordinate the work needed to generate recommendations anchored in the lived experiences of Black faculty, staff and students, in employment, policies, teaching and learning practices, etc. This historic report is the culmination of two years of community consultations, interviews, archival research, literature reviews, town halls and stakeholder conversations, taken on by some fifty Task Force members solicited from among Concordia’s Black community, and spread over initially eight and subsequently six subcommittees.
The Task Force’s recommendations, which align with several of Concordia’s Strategic Directions, emerged along four main axes
Driving institutional
change
Addresses the legacy of the 1969 student protest; the need for a university-wide anti-racism strategy; disaggregated data collection to better serve Black Concordians; training modules that address anti-Black racism in different domains of the university; and a fundraising strategy to support Black-centred initiatives.
Fostering black
flourishing
Encompasses hiring, career advancement and leadership of Black staff, faculty and librarians; the recruitment, retention and graduation of Black students and programs that contribute to their success; a shift in focus for campus security personnel to community safety rather than policing; and mental health services for Black Concordians.
Supporting black
knowledges
Focuses on Black Canadian Studies programs; Black perspectives in curriculum across the university; Black-centred research and a Black Knowledges Hub.
Encouraging
mutuality
Calls for interconnected approaches to confronting anti-Black racism within the university and committed relationships with Black community partners.
West Indian Society executive committee in Sir George Williams University yearbook (1958) Source: Concordia University Records Management and Archives
A parallel evolution of Concordia University and its Black presence
In order to properly contextualize the recommendations, we have created a timeline that attends to the history of Concordia in relation to Black presence, inclusion and discrimination. The timeline not only highlights the long history of Black presence at Concordia, but it also demonstrates the “ongoingness” of the advocacy and struggle for Black inclusion. The events highlighted in the timeline, along with the history of Black presence in Montreal in the context of higher education institutions, indicate the interconnections that exist between the intersectional realities of the Black experience at Concordia and in Montreal, and the work that still needs to be done at Concordia and to which the university must commit through dedicated actions and resources.
1889
Foundation of Loyola College, an extension of an English program at the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal.
The Montreal YMCA evening adult education program becomes Sir George Williams College.