Erase Racism as a Goal at the University and beyond
By: Neil H. Donahue, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs On Wednesday evening, June 7th, I attended the gala banquet of Erase Racism in the Garden City Hotel. The organization does tremendous work to highlight the problems of racism and segregation on Long Island that exist in ways and to degrees that most inhabitants of the Island probably don’t wish to think about. At each place setting in the main dining area, we each had not only the program for the evening but also a new infographic of various statistics, stunning (in two different senses) both in its beautiful visual presentation and in the statistics themselves. The beautiful presentation highlighted an ugly reality – to wit, that Long Island is more intensely segregated by school districts than it was 12 years ago, even though diversity overall on Long Island has increased. The stark reminder of that seemingly entrenched social reality did not undermine, rather more reinforced, the strong sense of solidarity i