Dear Members of the CUNY Law Community,
I’ve had the occasion to speak with many of you these past two weeks and have learned much about what’s brought us here. I write now to update you on the work my administrative colleagues and I have been doing to respond to this crisis.
First and foremost, I want to make sure that certain things are absolutely clear: former Dean Bilek’s statement was racist and indefensible; the proposal to offer early tenure to a white faculty member without offering the same to other pre-tenure faculty, many of whom are more senior and BIPOC, was racist; our handling of this situation bespeaks institutional failure; our entire community—BIPOC students, faculty, staff, and alumni especially—have been gravely harmed; and these revelations have exposed many other, long-standing race-related grievances.
As we continue to grapple with these painful, traumatic events—including our differences over how this crisis has unfolded—bear their consequences, gain a fuller picture, and appreciate the breadth and depth of the challenges they reveal, know that we are proactively taking the following steps to move us forward:
- We will continue to open lines of communication with everyone—students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the wider community, BIPOC community members, especially—to hear what you have to say and begin to repair the damage, distrust, and demoralization these events have caused. Painful as it’s been to hear of the harm we’ve inflicted, to hear of our checkered institutional history, and to hear divergent and, in some cases, irreconcilable perspectives, we are humbled and inspired by your willingness to engage. We will do our best to hold these contradictions, engage you despite objection and disagreement, and focus on the many things we can do.
- We will undertake and prioritize the immediate tasks, policies, and practices that concretely address these harms, among them increasing student support, in particular the hiring of a mental health counselor; scrutinizing tenure and early tenure processes—including recognition of invisible labor by BIPOC faculty; building transparent, collaborative protocol for handling racial issues and incidents; developing curricular, admissions, career services, and other initiatives; and exploring other, creative forms of shared governance—in particular the institutionalization of BIPOC faculty, staff, and student voices. We are sadly aware of the work certain faculty, students, staff, and alumni have had to shoulder because of our institutional failure—work that we now hear is cause for concern for potential retaliation. We assure these community members of the administration’s redoubled efforts in this regard, trust our colleagues to engage students, staff, and each other in good faith, and will monitor closely any action resembling retaliation.
We’ve no choice but to forge a collective path through this. I believe the only way to do that is by promoting a culture of care, equity, inclusion, and empathy in both process and substance. I urge us all to take responsibility for building that culture together. Even as one of the most multiracial, progressive institutions in this country, clearly we are not immune to systemic racism: this is not the first nor will it be the last of our reckoning.
For my part, I see this less as hypocrisy and more as fallibility in our quest for racial justice. If we do this right—if we can come together and show each other and the world around us that we can hold each other through rupture, repair, and transformation—then we will have taken this struggle that much farther.
Respectfully and in solidarity,
Eduardo R.C. Capulong ’91
Interim Dean