Published June 10, 2020
Dear WashU research community,
The murder of George Floyd two weeks ago in Minneapolis is reverberating around the world. The scenarios playing out all over the country are all too familiar to those of us who were in St. Louis six years ago as we witnessed the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the justified outrage that followed. These deaths are not isolated incidents. They are the result of years, decades, and centuries of implicit and explicit structural racism in our society and our country – the land of the free.
Academia, science, and research has not been color blind, and as an academic community we must face these truths and enact change. Today is #ShutDownSTEM. I urge you to take time today to pause, reflect, read, learn, think, plan, and act. Don’t stop with just today – real change takes sustained effort and commitment.
Join thousands of other scientists and academics to change our world. If we don’t, who will?
Researchers around the world prepare to #ShutDownSTEM and ‘Strike for Black Lives’
Thousands of scientists worldwide to go on strike for Black lives
Sincerely,
Jennifer Lodge, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Research