News and Events

Support for Chancellor Green and the Journey for Anti-Racism Co-Leaders

To Chancellor Ronnie Green and to the Journey’s Co-Leaders, we first want to thank you. You make us, a group of multinational students, feel valued, safe, and seen at UNL. We know that the work you are doing to make our university live up to its ideals is not easy on a professional or personal level. It is certainly not the path of least resistance, so we write today to applaud and support your dedication to a truly humanizing model of inclusivity – within the student body, our research, and our teaching.

Nebraskans are some of the most kind-hearted, well-meaning people in the nation, the kind of folks who will take the shirt off their back to help a neighbor. The values of community, compassion, cooperation, and growth are what make us Nebraska Strong. We strive to work alongside one another to promote these values and to enrich our community through mutual acknowledgement, understanding, love, and respect. It is in this spirit that we offer this statement today.

We, the UNL Racial Justice Alliance, are a group of about thirty graduate and undergraduate students from nine different countries (Mexico, Argentina, Spain, India, China, Guatemala, Kenya, Nigeria, and the United States). About half of our members identify as white, and we come from many different departments and colleges within UNL. We are united in the desire to make our university a place where every person feels connected, supported, and treated with respect and dignity. We believe most of our state leaders share those commitments, which is why we are surprised about the ongoing resistance to Critical Race Theory and are concerned that it has become clouded with misunderstanding.

As an organization committed to racial justice, we struggle to understand the opposition to UNL’s Journey for Anti-Racism and Racial Equity when the Journey’s foundational goal is to make UNL a safe and welcoming place for every student. How such humanizing, empathetic work rooted deeply in kindness can be out of line with any person’s agenda is deeply perplexing. Governor Ricketts’ claim that “the plan would inject Critical Race Theory (CRT) into every corner of campus” is evidence of his lack of understanding about what academic theories are and how they function. While the state apparently remains committed to preserving a legacy of perpetuating cycles of oppression and colonial hierarchies, UNL remains committed to “Learning from the past. Acting in the present. Helping shape the future.”

The state-level backlash against Chancellor Green and the Journey’s Co-Leaders is grounded in nothing more than a superficial (mis)understanding of the sociopolitical issues, ignorance of the state’s historical context, and a desire to instill fear into vulnerable populations in order to secure personal power. We are saddened that anyone can hear the phrase anti-racism and so vehemently suggest that its mission is steeped in sinister intentions. The conspiracy that our racial equity journey is more anti-white than it is pro-critical empathy reveals a deep lack of understanding toward the mission of this university. Governor Ricketts’ commitments toward equity appear to be limited by the dog whistles of communism and the superficial use of quotes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that do not truly contend with Reverend King’s drastic calls for equity, and instead, only function to excuse people from deep critical and intellectual thought and paralyze them in fabricated fear. It is no more constructive to call anti-racism communist than it is to call patriotism racist, and the work of efforts like UNL’s Journey for Anti-Racism are precisely in place to avoid those reductive oversimplifications that function to polarize and divide.

Chancellor Green and the Journey Co-Leaders are working tirelessly to ensure that UNL lives up to American ideals of democracy, liberty, opportunity, kindness, and equality. But this ethos is only a pipe dream if we cannot do the honest and self-reflexive work it takes to lift each other up and come together with historically accurate and critical thinking. This moment reveals that Chancellor and the Journey Co-Leaders are in a position to offer more support to Nebraskans at UNL, whether we be temporary residents or legacy students, as issues of racism undergo an ideological renewal in a hostile political climate.

The opposition to the Journey for Anti-Racism comes from a deliberate misrepresentation of what its incredible leaders stand for and what it is they are working toward. The visceral disdain for anything anti-racist comes from a national panic that has been fueled by politicians’ desperate to maintain control through division, and it is a shame that such fear is clouding good people’s ability to see the incredible and truly powerful work being done by Chancellor Green and the Journey Co-Leaders. However, it is also our belief that this disagreement lands us on the path toward racial equity at UNL and should not divide us, but rather encourage us to come together across lines of disagreement and have open dialogue about the true mission and values of the Journey.

To Chancellor Green and to the Journey’s Co-Leaders, we thank you again and we are confident you will stand strong in your convictions knowing that the work you are doing is making a positive impact on our lives.

With gratitude,
UNL Racial Justice Alliance