A proposed racial literacy requirement as part of VCU’s general education curriculum will not be implemented. In a 10-5 decision, the VCU Board of Visitors voted Friday to strike down the requirement, against the recommendations of the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UUCC) and the VCU Office of the Provost.
During a public comment period at the start of Friday’s Board meeting, students and faculty voiced support for the racial literacy requirement.
“I want to stress the essential career-readiness aspect of this new gen-ed requirement, a requirement that prepares VCU students to thrive in a local, regional, national and global economy,” said Shelli Fowler, an associate professor in the Department of English who taught one of the racial literacy courses this past year.
Anesia Lawson, a junior and president of the school’s chapter of the NAACP, concurred.
“Many of us are here today ready to speak on how important this requirement is to us,” she said. “We worked so hard. We followed the chain of command. We did the necessary steps.”
HISTORY
You can think of racial literacy as another category of general education requirements, like “quantitative foundations.” VCU students must take three to four credit hours of classes in this category, choosing one class from a list that includes things like algebra and statistics. Had the racial literacy requirement passed, students would have met the mandate by choosing one class from a list of 12 with titles like “Colorism in Society” and “Race and Racism in the United States.”
Students and faculty pushed for a racial literacy requirement after the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. In December of 2020, the faculty senate voted to support an antiracism curriculum requirement. A racial literacy requirement was subsequently approved in 2021 by the general education committee (GEC) and then the larger UUCC. A racial literacy task force worked to move general education requirements around, such that the total credit hours required remained the same–it would not cost students additional time or money to complete their gen-eds.
In 2023, VCU Provost Fotis Sotiropoulos paused the implementation of the requirement, saying there was insufficient capacity for students. Since then, 10 additional courses were approved that would fulfill the requirement. Sotiropolous announced on April 26 that VCU had the capacity to introduce the requirement and was prepared to set it in motion immediately.
“I’m often asked if I support the implementation of this requirement. My answer is yes,” Sotiropolous said at Thursday’s Academic and Health Affairs Committee (AHAC) meeting. He cited the faculty-led approach and VCU’s 2028 strategic plan, which calls for a “redesign [of] general education to include expected competencies for the future of work: digital literacy, racial literacy and entrepreneurship.”
“Right now, as far as I’m concerned, there is no reason to delay this requirement further,” Sotiropolous said. “On the other hand, I respect and recognize the Board’s authority to weigh in on whether we should have another requirement.”
BOARD DECISION
The Board does have that authority to weigh in on graduation requirements, according to assistant attorney general and university counsel Jake Belue. But it’s unusual for the Board to weigh in to the extent it did here: Previous votes on whether specific classes should be implemented as part of a graduation requirement were part of broader strategic moves for the school, including the introduction of the University College.
“In our training as board of visitors members, we talk a lot about shared governance,” said board member Benson Dendy, who was appointed by Governor McAuliffe in 2016. “I really think that this is a violation of shared governance. I think we should support the Provost’s recommendation and look at the whole process that’s gone on over the last four years.”
Other board members said that though they supported the 12 courses as elective classes, they would not support the initiative as a requirement to graduate.
“I think it’s actually inconsistent with freedom of scholarship to mandate this,” said board member Ellen Fitzsimmons, who was appointed by Governor Youngkin in 2022, at Thursday’s committee meeting. “I think it’s a wonderful offering to students, but I think that the mandate actually works against broad academic freedom.”
Rector of the Board Todd Haymore, a McAuliffe appointee, said the vote was not about the content of the courses, but solely about whether it was reasonable to add a graduation requirement. Not everyone bought that argument.
“If you leave it up to the Board, it becomes a political decision,” said board member Rev. Tyrone Nelson, appointed by McAuliffe in 2017 and Northam in 2021. “I don’t care what any of us say. We’re all political appointees. This board four years ago probably would vote in a different way than it would vote today.”
REACTION AND GOING FORWARD
Graduate student Micah White is part of a student group called NotWelcomeAtVCU, a campaign focused on adopting the racial literacy requirement and asking the school to rescind its invitation to Youngkin as a commencement speaker. He said he was motivated to support the racial literacy requirement in part because of learning about the East Marshall Well Project.
“The VCU medical school specifically has a very direct link to enslavement and exploitation,” he said. “We need racial literacy for most, if not all fields of incoming students because without it, we run the risk of engaging in practices–not as extreme as that–but without an understanding of why the people we’re working with may have the feelings about the field we’re working in. Without the context, we perpetuate a lot of the harm.”
White said he’s disappointed in the decision.
“VCU administration and the Board of Visitors has shown us time and time again who and what they value, and we are well aware that it is not the students and faculty who they parade around as evidence of their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he said. “The reality of this situation is well understood, and this is why NotWelcomeAtVCU exists in the first place. We will continue to agitate for and advocate on behalf of the students and faculty who continue to be disregarded.”
Amy Rector, an associate professor of anthropology and the co-chair of the racial literacy committee, said she worries about what board intervention means for curriculum decisions going forward.
“[The requirement] is appropriate. It’s vetted, it’s good, it’s strong. It’s going to make our students better,” she said. “At the end of the day, the real concern is the Board of Visitors. If they can do this, then they have a type of authority that undermines the ability of us as a university to do our job.”
The racial literacy requirement garnered attention in March, when VCU sent draft syllabi of the proposed courses that would satisfy the mandate to the Youngkin administration at his request.
Youngkin himself never weighed in on the courses. In a statement, his press secretary Christian Martinez said “the administration heard concerns from parents, students, and Board of Visitors members about VCU’s racial literacy coursework and asked for greater transparency around this potentially mandatory requirement for undergraduate students. The governor will continue to advocate for greater transparency in our public education institutions so students, families, and taxpayers can make informed decisions about what is best for them.”
Martinez did not respond to follow-up questions about intended next steps and whether other courses will come under similar review, instead referring RVA Magazine back to the above statement.
But during the committee discussion, when some Board members sought more information on the requirement, VCU President Michael Rao seemed poised to hear more input from the Board going forward.
“I’m hearing the Board. Maybe you’re not all on the same page. Maybe it’s not a clear divide, but there is some divide, and I think you [the Board] need more information,” he said. “I think the Provost and the faculty ought to be talking a little bit more about this and responding to specific questions that the Board has, and come back and allow the board to exercise its authority, which it can exercise over pretty much anything, if you think about it.”
