Dear TCU Community,  

The time is now to act.

As a group of concerned faculty, we are deeply disturbed at the recent allegations of unchecked racial and gender discrimination and open hostility at TCU. We stand in solidarity with current and former marginalized undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff who are speaking out and demanding an immediate change. We want to affirm our students, who have clearly laid out the changes that they need to see. We know all too well that, in times like these, institutional racism quells students’ progressive visions for their education rather than uplifts them. We also recognize that trauma begets trauma; the unaddressed transgressions of TCU’s past have led to this painful present. We speak out today in hopes of preventing future trauma, knowing that our many Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) faculty are uniquely qualified and ready to lead dynamic and difficult discussions about race. Fort Worth needs healing. TCU needs healing. Let us help.

To students, we stand in solidarity with you and Jane Doe #1. While we refrain from commenting on her lawsuit as it moves through its own due process, we want to affirm that students of color and students of other marginalized backgrounds HAVE and ARE being underserved and undervalued at TCU. It is not just in your head. We, too, are devastated by your isolation, lack of social and literal physical space, and the infuriating stories you have shared with us during our office hours and in passing about what you experience in the dorms, in class, and while trying to obtain services on campus. We are in awe of your resilience that we wish you did not have to have in the face of routine micro- and macroaggressions on campus; reinforced white supremacist frameworks that you experience daily at the hands of your professors and peers. As faculty, we are invested in helping you navigate processes for improving the conditions  in the classroom and across this campus. In addition to bringing to bear our knowledge, we extend our collective and individual support to you in whatever form that may take.  

To our fellow faculty members, we must all stand up and be agents of progressive change at TCU for the betterment of our students, staff, and one another. As other recent lawsuits have laid bare, faculty, too, are harmed professionally and personally by long-standing ideologies of white supremacy, fascism, patriarchy, queerphobia, xenophobia, and ableism. As BIPOC faculty, we are confronted daily with the gross realities of TCU’s deep-seated history of systemic racism — from unchecked racial terror and hate speech espoused in our own classrooms and on-campus by students and visitors, to being saddled with higher teaching loads than our white or male faculty counterparts that stifles promotion, to unrecognized and uncompensated service work that we are tasked with by administrators to hold TCU together. And, it is apparent that this culture of exploitation and negligence has made it grossly difficult for TCU to not only recruit and retain students of color, but faculty of color, too. We must stop with the band-aids, and be brave enough to put forth and implement bold, holistic and transformative prescriptions for eradicating the systems of oppression that have a grip on our workplace.

To the administration, we continue to be committed to eradicating the various obstacles that students of color, especially Black and Brown students, face at this institution, but we need your expeditious and explicit support. In order to advance equity and justice on-campus in the best interest of our students,  strengthen the university’s academic profile and reputation (a stated goal in the Vision in Action Strategic Plan), and ensure the recruitment and retention of BIPOC faculty, we call for:

❖ Joint hires, cluster hires in the research areas of Ethnic Studies (i.e. Asian American, Black, Native American, and Chicanx/Latinx Studies) and Gender and Sexuality Studies,

❖ Immediate investigations into salary gaps in and across departments and colleges, and a public commitment to closing those gaps and ensuring pay equity across all units,

❖ More transparency about salaries and start-up packages across the university, including digitally published and regularly updated classifications and pay scales,

❖ Better workload standards across departments and colleges (i.e. 2-2 standardized teaching load for all faculty, 1-2 for new faculty),

❖ Clearly defined and quantifiable criteria for tenure & promotion across departments,

❖ The recognition and compensation of invisible labor—i.e. mentorship of historically marginalized students, departmental service work, and other duties that often go unaccounted for in faculty annual reviews and tenure & promotion,

❖ The creation of a university ombudsperson’s office and the development of fair and transparent processes for filing and resolving complaints (i.e. Title IX, EEO, Dispute Resolutions, etc.), including the annual reporting of received Title IX complaints and greater compliance with other civil rights and anti-discrimination laws,  

❖ The hiring (and better compensation) of much more student affairs and academic affairs staff — which are professions in their own right — to meet the personal and professional needs of our students so that faculty, in particular BIPOC faculty, who are not trained to provide those types of professional services, are not left shouldering the weight of student growth and development,

❖ An end to the ongoing slashing of faculty benefits, which disproportionately harms junior and BIPOC faculty; we need comprehensive medical care (including mental health care) that is culturally responsive, accessible and affordable and more medical health providers on campus who reflect our state’s demographics, and

❖ Daycare services and after school programs provided on campus to support faculty, staff, and students with children.  

You have heard from an abundance of students (as well as BIPOC faculty that have left TCU after having similar experiences), who have offered accounts of their experiences of systemic racism on this campus. Do know that these stories are not surprising to us and many of them we have personally supported students through. Our students’ trauma directly affects faculty productivity and well-being, both of which can lead to burnout. If TCU is truly committed to being among one of the best places to work in the nation, as often touted, we feel strongly that mechanisms to address structural racism operating on campus need to be implemented and/or enhanced without delay. The cultural deficit discourse that frames marginalized students goes regularly unchecked at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Diversity is not an obstacle to be navigated in our academic and professional careers. It must, instead, be a transformative core value of this institution.

We see, affirm, and offer our support to the vision of the students, faculty, and staff, who are working towards a truly transformative education here at TCU.
 

Signed,

Faculty and Staff:
Carmen Kynard, Ph.D. – English
Brandon Manning, Ph.D. – English
Jeanelle Hope, Ph.D. – Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Rima Abunasser, Ph.D. – English
Jane Mantey, Ph.D. – Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Melanie Harris, Ph.D. – Religion
Brian J. Dixon, M.D. – TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Hanan Hammad, Ph.D. – History
Stacie McCormick, Ph.D. – English  
Santiago Piñón, Ph.D. – Religion
Adam McKinney, M.A. – Dance/College of Fine Arts
Eric Fisher Stone, MFA— English
Jason Helms, Ph.D. — English
Sarah Robbins, Ph.D.  — English
Ann George, PhD — English
Brad Lucas, Ph.D. — English
Regina Lewis, B.A. — English
Sharon Anderson Harris, Ph.D. — English
Charlotte Hogg, Ph.D. — English
Carrie Liu Currier, Ph.D. — Political Science
Jessica L. Fripp, Ph.D. — Art/College of Fine Arts
Gabriel Huddleston, Ph.D. — Curriculum Studies/College of Education
Suki John, Ph.D. — Dance/ College of Fine Arts
Max Krochmal, Ph.D. — History and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Nino Testa, Ph.D. — Women and Gender Studies
Linda Hughes, Ph.D. — English
Wil Gafney, Ph.D. — Brite Divinity School
Lori Boornazian Diel, Ph.D. — Art/College of Fine Arts
Lauren Mitchell, Ph.D. — TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Jennifer Martin, Ph.D. — Social Work and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Babette Bohn, Ph.D. — Art/College of Fine Arts
Angela Towne, Ph.D. — Women and Gender Studies
Breinn Richter, MBA — Management and Leadership/Neeley School of Business
Neil Easterbrook, Ph.D. — English
Claudia Camp, Ph.D. — Women and Gender Studies
Rebecca Sharpless, Ph.D. — History and Women and Gender Studies
Annette Wren, Ph.D.  — TCU Writing Center
Alex Hidalgo, Ph.D. — History
Kurk Gayle, Ph.D. — Intensive English Program
Layne Craig, Ph.D. — English
Gene Allen Smith, Ph.D. — History
Sylvia Mendoza, Ph.D. — UTSA and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Bonnie C Blackwell, Ph.D. — English
Shweta Reddy, Ph.D. — Fashion Merchandising/College of Fine Arts
Sara-Jayne Parsons, M.A. — Art/College of Fine Arts
Rhiannon G Mayne, Ph.D. — Environmental Sciences/College of Science and Engineering
Jill C. Havens, Ph.D. — English
Jessica Zeller, MFA, Ph.D. — Dance/College of Fine Arts
Mary Twis, Ph.D. — Social Work
Katie Lauve-Moon, Ph.D. — Social Work
Lynné Bowman Cravens, MFA — Art/College of Fine Arts
Sheriee Parnell, B.S. — TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Matthew Pitt, MFA — English
Margaret Lowry, Ph.D. — Women and Gender Studies
Fran Huckaby, Ph.D. — Curriculum Studies/College of Education and School of Interdisciplinary Studies
Adriane Bezusko, Ph.D. — English
Emily Farris, Ph.D. — Political Science
Amy Stewart, MM, DWS — Music/College of Fine Arts
Chantel L. Carlson, Ph.D. — English
Jacqueline Lambiase, Ph.D. Strategic Communication
Kerri Menchaca, BA/BFA — Mary Couts Burnett Library
Adam Fung, MFA — Art/College of Fine Art
Yvonne Lin Giovanis, M.Ed. — Campus Recreation & Wellness Promotion
Celeste Menchaca, Ph.D — History
Chase Crossno, MPH — TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Sue Anderson, Ed.D. — Educational Technology/College of Education
Mayra Guardiola, M.A. — TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Luis Romero, Ph.D. — Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Hadi Hosainy, Ph.D. — History
Curt Rode, Ph.D — English
Muriel Cormican, Ph.D. — Modern Language Studies
Steve Daniel Przymus, Ph.D. — Bilingual/Multicultural Education/College of Education
Erin Atwood, Ph.D. — Educational Leadership/College of Education
Dan Jian, MFA — Art/College of Fine Art
Orlando Lara, MFA — Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies (formerly)
Sally L. Fortenberry, Ph.D. — Fashion Merchandising/College of Fine Arts
Erik Kojola, Ph.D. — Sociology
Roina I Baquera, PhD —  Kinesiology
Junyu Zhang, MA,M.S.Ed — Modern Language Studies
Jennifer Griffith, Ph.D. — English
Michael N Faggella-Luby, Ph.D. — Special Education/College of Education
Peter Frinchaboy, Ph.D. — Physics & Astronomy/College of Science and Engineering
Omar R. Harvey, Ph.D. — Geological Sciences/College of Science and Engineering
Amy Roehl, MFA — Design/College of Fine Arts
Sh'Niqua Alford, MSW — Social Work
Ashlie Seale, MSN — Nursing/Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences
Shanna Combs, M.D. — TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Estee Hernández, Ph.D. — Honors College
Phil Esposito, Ph.D. — Kinesiology
Nina Martin, Ph.D. — Dance/College of Fine Arts
Jodi Campbell, Ph.D. — History
Jeannine Gailey, Ph.D. — Sociology and Anthropology
Carrie Leverenz, Ph.D. — English
Rachel Livedalen, MFA — Art/College of Fine Arts
Dalton Goodier — Admissions
Marcella Stark, PhD, LPC-S — Counseling/College of Education
Clifford Harrell — Athletics
Adam King, Ph.D. — Kinesiology
Giridhar Akkaraju, Ph.D. — Biology/College of Science and Engineering
Valerie Gonzalez — College of Education
Nada Elias-Lambert, Ph.D. — Social Work
Casey Call, Ph.D. — Psychology/Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development
Hope Jackson, MSN, Ph.D. — Nursing/Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences


Undergraduate/Graduate Students and Alumni:
Saffyre Falkenberg — English
Cody A. Jackson — English
Katelyn Thompson — English
Tim Ballingall — English
Kelli Gill — English
Kaylee Henderson — English
Briana Salas — History
Natasha Trace Robinson — English
Fiyori Kidane — Sociology/Religion
Sara Kelm — English
Adam Oran Carter — English
Morgan Anise Gunn — Communication Studies
Frances-Marie Isaac — Biology
Alonzo Smith — English
Cecilia N. Sanchez Hill — History and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Elissa Bryant, M.Ed. — Curriculum Studies/College of Education
Micah-Jade Stanback — English
Jasmine Paz — Engineering
Evelese Reyes — Nursing
Elaine Lysinger — English
Eduardo Ramirez-Gomez — Pre-Major/AddRan
Jonathan Villalobos — Strategic Communication
Meagan Solomon — English
Naiomi Gonzalez — History
Kim Phan Nguyen — Art/College of Fine Arts
Ashley Buchanan — Religion
Ashley Parks — Writing/Theater
Rylie Buch — English
Mikayla Wilson — Physics & Astronomy
Katherine Bynum — History
Charity Mason — Social Work
Trevon Thomas — Economics
Joey Flores — Neeley School of Business
Diandria Veals — Biochemistry
Jongkeyong Kim — English
Cameron Estrada — Social Work
Sahira Salazar — Nursing
A’Lyssa Cunningham — Social Work
Alyssa Nshimirimana — Psychology
Lauren Jackson — Nutritional Sciences
Elise Shropshire — Strategic Communications and Spanish
Kayla Sparks — English
Remi Shores — Religion
Niang Muang — Nursing
Luise Hauptmann — Women and Gender Studies
Ally Lucas — Nursing
José Luis Cano — English
Sheridan Stills — Political Science and History
Jéssica Webba — Music
Aurore Manzi — Environmental Science
Myah McNair — Speech and Language Pathology
Keziah Amoasi — Nursing
Micha Ryle Sampson — Brite Divinity School
Riane Meekins — Nutrition
Mariah Fluellen — Strategic Communication
Rasaan Hatcher — Neeley School of Business and African American and Africana Studies
Paige Tooley — Neeley School of Business and College of Education
Taylor Schwarz — Art/College of Fine Arts
Nalissa Houth — Nursing
Kian Ghalibaf — Biology
Nam Nguyen — Chemistry, Music, and Women and Gender Studies
Cassidy Smith — Nursing
Jacob Portillo — Environmental Science and Biology
Gabriel Wallace — Social Work
Tiony Cooper — Political Science
Keila Tupua — Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Chloe Cloud — English and Journalism
Ruba Akkad — English
Nicole Riddle — Physics & Astronomy
Brendan Carl Voss — Religion
Mayra Guardiola — TCU-UNTHSC School of Medicine
Madison Gilbert —  Political Science
Jordan Jeffreys — Psychology, Criminal Justice, and Women and Gender Studies
Jordyn Bryant — Communications
Edriana Cofer — Education
Diana Do — Psychology
Whitney Lew James — English
Alexa Johnson — Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Tristian Brooks — Sociology and Economics
Grace Koch — Education
Crystal Avelar — Neeley School of Business
Sierra Rodriguez — Social work
Ayomide Ayowole-Obi — Computer Science
Dylynne Dodson — Education
Nathan Shores — Music/College of Fine Arts
Kelly Ryan — Bob Schieffer College of Communication
Sofia Prado Huggins — English
Caroline Norton — Theatre/College of Fine Arts
Toya Mary Okonkwo, M.A. — English
Lillian Marie Young  Art/College of Fine Arts
Harrison Perry — Neuroscience and Psychology
Anna Grace Fleet — News and Media Studies and Journalism
Guadalupe Sanchez — College of Fine Arts
Monica valdez — Art/College of Fine Arts
Chip Fankhauser — Math and Writing
Teresa Finucane — English
Maya Vela — News and Media Studies and Journalism
Angel Guyton — Combined Sciences/College of Science and Engineering
Hannah Patterson — Sociology
Jazmín Rosales — Psychology and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Alyssa Johnson — English
Jennette Wilson Amos — Education
Robert Grebel — Political Science
Tiffany Hang — Combined Sciences/College of Science and Engineering
George williams —Social Work and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
Sally Matzen — Political Science
Katrina McCutcheon — Biology
Hannah Davis — English
Paige Mulry — Political Science and Communication Studies
Hannah Wilson — Graphic Design
Anmei Ladeau — Graphic Design
Darlene Ninziza — Child Development and Writing
Latai Holeva Grace Haisila — Pre-Major/Nursing
Shelly Wu — Science Education/College of Education
Stacy Vasquez — College of Education
Cassandra Cartmill — College of Education
Dana Aicha Shaaban — English
Valeria Garcia — Neuroscience/College of Science and Engineering
Whitney Neumeyer Roach — Curriculum Studies/College of Education
Alexus Carrizales — Nursing
Caroline Jones — Graphic Design + College of Science and Engineering
Emily Nicholson — Neeley School of Business
Abby Souder — Political Science and English
Railey Tassin — History
Emi Gomez — College of Science and Engineering
Jensen Branscombe — History
Giselle Flores — Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies and Sociology
Jonathan Crocker — Curriculum Studies/College of Education


❖ To sign on IN SUPPORT of this call to action and have your name added to the list above, please submit your name and additional information below. Solidarity! ❖