Recommendations from MIT Black Students Union (2015)

http://bgsa.mit.edu/recommendations

Recommendations from Black DUSP Thesis (2020)

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTn1GLHqUFNcgpz02NwUToLDA4i0sOErUMSF5cyaHmSML8ILXxneqewsUUuKussJkw3eFg2LCA8Yqzh/pub

Notes from Graduate Student of Color Advisory Council advisor 

(June 2020)

1. There's been substantial work done to document racist, racialized, and targeted experiences of Black and other graduate students of color MIT. Many findings are paired with recommendations found in a report Institute administration refers to as The McGee Report. 
2. Some of our peer departments at other institutions have explicit, sustained lines of funding for Black, Latinx, and Native (URM) Master's and PhD students. In contrast, MIT has an Institute-level diversity fellowship that includes eligible groups beyond URM students. Administration historically hasn't prioritized diversity funding in fundraising strategies it's explored to raise funds for other endeavors such as the Schwarzman College of Computing, which recently challenge our own SCC’s use of it’s acronym in its web presence before deciding otherwise. The Institute also, to my knowledge, has made no announcement of a planned increase in diversity fellowship funding.
3. Many long-needed changes might be uncomfortable for some members of our community who are used to doing things a certain way, including admissions and determining funding for people and programs. Changes can look like empowering school-level diversity officers to be involved in these processes, meaningfully connecting with our new Institute Community Equity Officer, John Dozier, and exploring changes in mandatory faculty training/commitment to holistic graduate admissions frameworks. In my role facilitating MIT’s Graduate Student of Color Advisory Council  I've witnessed Black graduate students ask Institute administration about all of these resources, but met with the response that the much of the power ultimately rests with departments and faculty.
4. I encourage all of us to re-examine the recommendations from MIT's Black Graduate Student Association in 2015, a document produced after a period of widespread racial trauma and organized resistance. These recommendations, like so many other resources here at the Institute  are available to help guide what we prioritize as we move forward. Students of color, and Black students specifically, labored to produce them, and we must take advantage if we are sincere in our efforts to evolve.