Department of Political Science and International Relations

We in the Department of Political Science and International Relations stand in solidarity with those calling for justice and exercising their rights to assemble, protest and challenge structures of white supremacy, police brutality and state violence. We share in the grief and outrage at the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others who have suffered at the hands of unjust systems that continue to reproduce racial inequity in our country. We also recognize the ongoing pain and anguish experienced by members of our community including our Black students and faculty. We see you, we value you, and we are here for you. We are heartened by the courage and moral commitment of people from every walk of life from Minnesota to San Diego and Germany to New Zealand, putting themselves at risk to demand justice, and in the process validating our belief in the tradition of direct action to advance a more just and democratic community. While we share the desire that justice may be achieved in a peaceful and orderly manner, as political scientists, we are aware that the pursuit of justice is a necessarily disruptive endeavor, and that calls for order are all too frequently denials of the realities of injustice and rejections of substantive change. As such, we denounce the encouragement of state violence and domination in the face of mass demonstrations, as well as the deployment of rhetoric with deep segregationist and white supremacist roots. As political scientists, we are committed to interrogating the ideas, institutions and behaviors that advance injustice. We are also committed to understanding and strengthening the means by which righteous demands for justice may be realized in practice. As teachers, we recognize the profound responsibility we share to support, educate, and empower our students to ask difficult questions of themselves and their communities and bravely act in pursuit of the ideals of truth, beauty and goodness that inform our shared vocation.

In that capacity we commit to the following steps. We will:

• Reaffirm our support of the efforts of USD Votes to expand voting access and information against the backdrop of systematic racist voter suppression efforts;
• Devote department resources to support the creation of a monthly race and politics series open to the entire USD community in 2020/2021;
• Commit to examining the impact of racial/ethnic difference in the widest possible range of courses offered by the department; and,
• Evaluate our syllabi as individual faculty working to ensure that course texts are not limited to authors from traditionally dominant racial, ethnic, or gender backgrounds.

As inheritors of the Catholic intellectual tradition, we agree with Pope Francis when he states, "It is essential that respect for human dignity and human rights inspire and direct every effort to address the grave situations of war and armed conflict, crushing poverty, discrimination and inequality that afflict our world." As such, we believe that Black Lives Matter and are committed as scholars and educators not only to speak, but to act boldly to advance that message. The work of achieving justice and democracy is a never-ending task that must be undertaken with a spirit of humility and a sober recognition of the work that must be done within ourselves and our own community. We commit ourselves to perpetual self-examination of our complicity in racial injustice and use that awareness to dedicate ourselves to the fight to eliminate it.

The faculty of our department strongly condemn the mass murder of Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyu Feng on Tuesday, May 16, 2021. This incident has added to the accumulated trauma from the growing number of tragic attacks targeting Asian people in this country in recent years, and the even longer history of systemic discrimination and violence targeting the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, as well as other underrepresented groups in this country. We share in the mourning of the victims and offer our condolences to their families and loved ones.

We want to express our sympathy and solidarity to every one of our Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander colleagues, students, family members, friends, and neighbors. Our society clearly has enormous work to do in order to confront the problems of racially motivated violence, gun violence, and violence against women. We recognize that, as political scientists, we have a responsibility to foster awareness and critical reflection on the history of oppression in its many forms, including misogyny and racism targeting the AAPI community.

In addition to other commitments that we have made to tackle issues of systemic racial and ethnic bias, we as teachers and scholars commit to redoubling our efforts to address these issues through the following steps:

• Continue and expand our efforts to promote understanding and dialogue through our series on race and politics series with a special session devoted to AAPI experiences, and especially a gendered perspective on these issues;
• Expand our offerings on the AAPI experience by developing a new course offering on Asian American politics for our departmental catalog, with a core curricular designation that will help to educate undergraduate students from across the campus;
• Devote space in our syllabi, class discussions, advising, and service to help address recent and long-standing discrimination against the AAPI community.

Acts of hate and intolerance targeted at any particular social group are an affront to every single one of us. We often talk about American values in terms of our rights and liberties. But just as essential to our beliefs, our way of life, and our system of democratic government are the principles of tolerance and respect for the dignity of every human being.