The Black on Campus Coalition sends demands to administration

By Badri Murali 

The Black on Campus Coalition put forth a list of seven demands on Nov. 24 addressed to president Sheldon Levy and provost and vice-president academic Mohamed Lachemi. The seven demands are:

• That the administration start a process to rename the university, because of Egerton Ryerson’s role in creating the residential school systems and their impact on Aboriginal, Metis and Inuit communities.

• That the administration commit to call for more funding to post-secondary education and to reduce tuition fees.

• That the administration create a mandatory racial and inclusion curriculum mandatory for all students, faculty and staff at Ryerson.

• That by the 2017-18 academic year, there be a 10 per cent increase of Black tenured faculty, full time staff and upper administration.

• That the university include more racially diverse courses based on racialized people’s stories and experiences, and that they be taught by full-time tenured racialized faculty.

• That the administration stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter – Toronto and to give a donation to the group.

• That the Ryerson Black History Awareness Committee be only made up of Black faculty, students and staff.

This comes after the group’s Nov. 18 action in solidarity with students at Missouri University and Yale University.  

This list of demands were shared on the United Black Students at Ryerson’s Facebook page, but were signed off by a group called the Black on Campus Coalition, which has described itself as a group of students who “are committed to challenging the violent and pervasive accounts of anti-Black racism on their campuses.”

The full statement can be read here.