"The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 wasn't the first public execution of a Black person at the hands of a white police officer and certainly not the last. But as the world watched another unarmed Black man die, we cried, we yelled, we got angry, and our collective consciousness awakened. Protestors took to the street demanding justice for George Floyd and others, including Breonna Taylor. Amongst the calls for justice for Black people, who are inequitably killed by police officers, incarcerated, and dying as a result of COVID-19, a call to undo 400 years of systemic racism in the United States emerged. Quoting Angela Davis, scholars and activists have stressed that, "In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist."

Ibram Kendi [link removed no longer active] defines anti-racist as "one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea." Importantly, Kendi suggests that action is an important part of becoming anti-racist. In other words, you must talk and act in ways that show your commitment to disrupting systemic racism. Scholars such as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Daniel Solorzano have been defining and redefining racism for decades, reminding us that racism is not about individual prejudice or discrimination, but instead a systemic issue that has historical roots in the founding of the United States and in connection to settler colonialism. Black bodies have been enslaved within the present-day United States since the 17th century, yet enslavement has transformed and evolved multiple times. As scholar Michelle Alexander eloquently outlined, the emancipation of enslaved people in 1863 was not the end of slavery in the United States, and instead, it reinvented itself, from 100 years of Jim Crow laws that allowed for "separate but equal" public facilities, which we know were never equal, to mass incarceration of Black people. The policies that she scrutinizes are not anti-racist, and intentionally target and incriminate Black people.

As we collectively grapple with how to become anti-racist and to repeal educational, legal, housing, and financial systems that have been effectively designed to minoritize Black people (and other people of color), colleges and universities too must figure out how to become anti-racist. As an organizational theorist committed to equity and justice, I primarily think about, write about, and speak about how to undo racist postsecondary structures. I have outlined various ways for colleges and universities to become anti-racist, from the way it recruits students, faculty, and staff, to the way it delivers educational content in the classroom, and into the decision-making and leadership structures. Yet to transform entire institutions seems daunting to many and can be overwhelming. Instead, I encourage people to focus on one dimension at a time, and more specifically, to focus on their own sphere of influence. In other words, what do you have the power to change in your current position?

Here I focus on hiring practices. Arguably, hiring educators committed to antiracism, including faculty, staff, and administrators, is an important step towards becoming an anti-racist organization. Yet many are struggling with how to do this. Here I offer a few suggestions (though there are many more). Throughout his book, Kendi suggests that anti-racist people support anti-racist policies, so colleges and universities must analyze their hiring policies to ensure that they are in fact anti-racist.

Colleges and universities committed to becoming anti-racist should express this in their job announcements and add specific language about their desire to hire people committed to antiracism and racial justice. Many colleges and universities have already added language about their desire to hire more diverse people; now is the time to update the language in the job announcement to specifically express a commitment to hiring anti-racist people. Also, institutions must move to require the submission of an anti-racist statement, rather than a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement, as part of the application. The candidate must be prompted to express their commitments and demonstration of antiracism. Specifically, the guidelines should state that the candidate should provide examples of their anti-racist values and actions.

Moreover, the people appointed to the search committee should have expertise in racial equity and justice, which should include white people in order to reduce the service load placed on people of color on campus, because we know that white people are still the majority in faculty, staff, and administration positions. The search committee must also be trained to review CVs in a way that does not reinforce (white) normative standards of excellence; instead, they should look for indicators of a commitment [link removed no longer active] to antiracism and racial justice. This must include the use of a rubric, which has specific measures for assessing a candidate's commitment to antiracism and racial justice. Without a rubric, search committee members are susceptible to assessing the candidate's accomplishments based on subjective measures, which are likely to be race-neutral or grounded in white normative values.

The interviews, both virtually and on campus, are also important times to integrate questions about a candidate's actions that demonstrate their commitment to being anti-racist. For example, a search committee could ask a candidate to describe how they teach antiracism in the classroom or how they promote antiracism on campus, through programming and decision-making. The on-campus visit is an opportune time to have candidates demonstrate their anti-racist practices. Moreover, they should be invited to discuss race and antiracism with various people they interact with while on campus, and these people should be adequately prepared to have these conversations and to assess the candidate's responses.

There are a number of resources available to campus leaders that address how to hire for equity and justice, which I encourage readers to access. Specifically the USC Race & Equity Center offers multiple institutes that may be worth pursuing. Campus leaders should also consider cluster hiring, which has shown to be effective for increasing the diversity of faculty and could also be used with staff and administrators. The Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities (APLU) has outlined this topic and written a report worth considering.

At this moment, I remind us that colleges and universities are not yet anti-racist. They never have been, but they can and should be. Now is the time to become anti-racist in our hiring practices, as one step towards equity and justice for Black people and all people of color."

(Taken from Higher Ed Jobs, "Anti-Racist Hiring Practices in Higher Education" by Dr. Gina Ann Garcia)