UConn Anti-Black racism course requirement placed on hold

By Sara Bedi­gian & Bre­an­na Bon­ner
UConn Jour­nal­ism
Novem­ber 4, 2025

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut Sen­ate vot­ed on Mon­day night to delay a require­ment that all under­grad­u­ates take a course on anti-Black racism amid con­cerns that requir­ing the course would be con­sid­ered dis­crim­i­na­to­ry by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

The course was first intro­duced as a pop-up in 2020 fol­low­ing stu­dent advo­ca­cy after the Black Lives Mat­ter protests. In May 2023, a pro­pos­al was adopt­ed to make the course a grad­u­a­tion require­ment for all under­grad­u­ates. Since then, the course had been in devel­op­ment, and the require­ment had not yet been imposed.

The course has cov­ered such top­ics as sys­temic and insti­tu­tion­al racism, Black resis­tance and Black resilience.

The uni­ver­si­ty coun­sel advised the Uni­ver­si­ty Sen­ate that the anti-Black racism course require­ment as orig­i­nal­ly passed could be con­sid­ered ille­gal by the cur­rent fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tion. This comes after the U.S. attor­ney general’s office issued a mem­o­ran­dum to all fed­er­al agen­cies in July, estab­lish­ing guide­lines for unlaw­ful prac­tices with fed­er­al fund­ing. These includ­ed race-based schol­ar­ships and cul­tur­al com­pe­ten­cy require­ments.

Bob Day, the chair of the Sen­ate Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, pro­posed cre­at­ing a task force to devel­op the course, amid cur­rent fed­er­al pol­i­cy changes and bud­getary con­cerns. Sug­ges­tions includ­ed offer­ing a selec­tion of relat­ed cours­es focus­ing on anti-Asian, anti-Mus­lim and anti-Semi­tism top­ics for stu­dents to choose from in addi­tion to anti-Black racism, as opposed to requir­ing a sin­gle class.

The motion, which passed 59–10 on Mon­day night, will cre­ate a task force to issue a report to the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee by Feb­ru­ary, with spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions that could be dis­cussed in sub­se­quent meet­ings.

“We think that the best that we [can] do is to con­sid­er these things slow­ly and patient­ly with task force [mem­bers] that are rep­re­sent­ed that can speak thought­ful­ly and work with the oth­er stake­hold­ers,” Day said.

Andy Zhang, pres­i­dent of the Under­grad­u­ate Stu­dent Gov­ern­ment, said he was in favor of the task force, and that man­dat­ing the anti-Black racism course in this polit­i­cal cli­mate would draw unwant­ed atten­tion to UConn. He added that he was con­cerned that if UConn moved too quick­ly on requir­ing the anti-Black racism course, it could jeop­ar­dize future diver­si­ty ini­tia­tives.

“We don’t want to get rid of ABR, but we want to do it in a way that is fea­si­ble and suc­cess­ful and works for every­one,” Zhang said, refer­ring to the anti-Black racism course.

Dou­glas Kauf­man, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of lit­er­a­cy in the Neag School of Edu­ca­tion and a mem­ber of the sen­ate, urged his col­leagues to reject the motion. He added that task forces often slow down ini­tia­tives.

“There are real dan­gers to push­ing back against oppres­sive forces,” Kauf­man said. “Nev­er­the­less, his­to­ry also tells us that when we don’t do that, we face oppres­sion for longer amounts of time.”

Oth­ers raised bud­getary con­cerns. Alex­is Boy­lan, a sen­a­tor and a pro­fes­sor of art his­to­ry and Africana stud­ies, not­ed that paus­ing the course will ensure that fac­ul­ty respon­si­ble for run­ning it will be paid and sup­port­ed prop­er­ly.

“We can set­tle the time­lines we want, and if there is no way to fund it, that is going to be a major hur­dle that we’re all going to have to face,” Boy­lan said.

The course orig­i­nat­ed from stu­dents in 2020 at a vir­tu­al town hall meet­ing by the African Amer­i­can Cul­tur­al Cen­ter. Shawn Sal­vant, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of Africana stud­ies and Eng­lish, said the course was par­tial­ly a response to reports of microag­gres­sions hap­pen­ing on cam­pus at the time. The course was offered as a pop-up course in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In 2023, Sal­vant and Stephany San­tos, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor-in-res­i­dence in bio-med­ical engi­neer­ing, were select­ed as co-chairs of the ad-hoc com­mit­tee to move the require­ment pro­pos­al through the Sen­ate process. Sal­vant said the effort was dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by stu­dent action and input, includ­ing from the under­grad­u­ate stu­dent gov­ern­ment.

Even if new rec­om­men­da­tions are passed in April from the task force, Day said the course will like­ly not be offered for 2026–2027 due to fund­ing con­cerns and to allow time for the course devel­op­ment.

UConn Jour­nal­ism stu­dent Christi Throw­er con­tributed to this sto­ry.