Opinion: How can we trust ‘inclusive excellence’ push at Penn State?

As we commemorate the last few days of Black History Month in 2024, it is instructive to reflect on the state of affairs to advance racial justice and anti-racism at Penn State. In previous writings, I, as well as others, have been profoundly critical of the university’s lack of substantive progress, especially as it relates to Black faculty. In the immortal words of Frederick Douglass, if there is anything our history as African Americans has shown us is, “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

So where does Penn State stand currently? Well, I think there is a general acknowledgment that the present structures and offices of educational equity have been ineffectual and are moribund and that a total realignment is long overdue.

I’ve come to understand that a diversity framework termed “inclusive excellence” is being bandied about, principally, by Provost Justin Schwartz. Among scholars in education, this is not a new term or paradigm as it has been around for about 20 years or more and some universities have adopted it as an administrative branch. There are some positive qualities about the idea of “inclusive excellence.” For one, it recognizes that some have been wrongfully excluded and thus there is a moral imperative to rectify the situation by including them.

For all of its merits, however, it is not a framework or vehicle for addressing anti-racism and, particularly anti-Black racism. Some institutions employ it to disguise the work of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) and to appease its opponents. Mind you however, it is not the words that determine its outcomes as it is the will, strength and courage of the administration, faculty and students.

What if “inclusive excellence” is implemented at Penn State, should we trust President Neeli Bendapudi’s administration and the board of trustees to “do the right thing?” Well, I will answer that question with some questions. Did we trust them to fulfill the recommendations of ex-President Eric Barron’s Presidential Commission on Racism, Bias, and Community? Have you visited the Center for Racial Justice, lately? Do you remember President Bendapudi’s pas de deux video on DEIB with the special advisor during the spring of 2023? And what about the (censored) special advisor’s DEIB Report, something the President has yet to state her position or recommendations. Is the Dashboard still dashing? And only God and a few angels know what is going on in those so-called working groups or agile teams.

Please do not fall for what Malcolm X referred to as the “okie doke.” There is nothing intrinsically resurrective about a proposal to appoint a vice president of inclusive excellence. If this person (if ever hired) does not report directly to the president, then they may be vice president in name only and powerless to effect real change. This would be an easy out for President Bendapudi to absolve herself of any real responsibility as she is presently doing. Appointing a czar to rule over the entire bureaucratic landscape of DEIB without sufficient resources and volition is bound to fail. We must not trust the administration and the board of trustees to do the “right thing” especially in the midst of a budget crisis. They must be pressured to do so.

And while we are discussing “inclusive excellence,” the Faculty Senate and especially its leadership, could use a double dose as it floundered embarrassingly and most disappointedly in excluding any reference to racial justice, anti-racism or even DEIB in its announcement last week of a proposed Agreement on Shared Governance Cooperation. Nowhere does the document even implicitly require that the university’s impending budget cuts include a verifiable plan to ensure an equitable distribution of resources and an explicit plan to advance racial justice and diversity across all campuses. To have proposed this “promissory note” excluding us during Black History Month and after the well-attended Racial Justice Teach-in on Penn State’s budget crisis only reminds us of Ralph Ellison’s representation of Black folks as the “Invisible Man.”

Lest we forget Douglass’ other historical adage, “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Gary King, Ph.D., is a professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State and a co-author of the “More Rivers to Cross” reports.