{"id":10007,"date":"2021-02-12T10:52:41","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T15:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/?page_id=10007"},"modified":"2021-02-12T11:21:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T16:21:56","slug":"statement-on-racism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/home\/statement-on-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Statement on Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The undersigned members of the faculty of the Astronomy Department add their voices to those decrying the tragic and senseless recent killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, as well as the many other acts of violence inflicted on Black Americans for far too long. Our academic and scientific communities must be free of racism in all forms, and we acknowledge that too often we have fallen short of this goal. The consequences are far and wide, and include the continued underrepresentation of Black and historically marginalized people within our scientific fields, as well as within our department and research centers. New action is needed. As we strive to build a welcoming, open, and supportive environment for all, we commit to fighting racism in all that we do and to educating ourselves to think and act as true anti-racists.\u00a0 In the coming months, the Astronomy faculty will\u00a0re-examine our academic programs, admissions, and recruitment, in coordination with the Boston University Office of Diversity and Inclusion, to address through action the underrepresentation of minority individuals in our scientific field and locally in our department. Further, we endorse and recommend the statements on these issues by Boston President Robert Brown (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/president\/our-challenge-in-a-time-of-crisis\/\">linked here<\/a> with an update <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/president\/following-up-on-mondays-letter-to-the-community\/\">linked here<\/a>), Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Stan Sclaroff (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/deans-corner\/we-must-confront-systemic-racism-and-inequality\/\">linked here<\/a>), and our professional scientific societies: the American Astronomical Society and its Divisions (<a href=\"https:\/\/aas.org\/posts\/news\/2020\/06\/aas-divisions-condemn-institutional-racism\">linked here<\/a>), and the American Geophysical Union \u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/fromtheprow.agu.org\/agu-demands-diversity-equity-and-inclusion\/\">linked here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Signed:<\/p>\n<p>Thomas M. Bania, Professor<br \/>\nElizabeth Blanton, Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Astrophysical Research<br \/>\nTereasa Brainerd, Associate Professor<br \/>\nJohn Clarke, Professor and Director of the Center for Space Physics<br \/>\nDan P. Clemens, Professor and Chair<br \/>\nCatherine Espaillat, Associate Professor<br \/>\nJ.J. Hermes, Assistant Professor<br \/>\nW. Jeffrey Hughes, Professor<br \/>\nWen Li, Assistant Professor<br \/>\nAlan Marscher, Professor<br \/>\nCarlos Martinis, Research Assistant Professor<br \/>\nMichael Mendillo, Professor<br \/>\nPhilip Muirhead, Assistant Professor<br \/>\nMerav Opher, Professor<br \/>\nMeers M. Oppenheim, Professor<br \/>\nPaul Withers, Associate Professor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The undersigned members of the faculty of the Astronomy Department add their voices to those decrying the tragic and senseless recent killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, as well as the many other acts of violence inflicted on Black Americans for far too long. Our academic and scientific communities must [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15792,"featured_media":0,"parent":3,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/landing.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10007"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10014,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10007\/revisions\/10014"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}