Request edit access
Open Letter in Defense of Dr. Barnor Hesse
March 4, 2021

Dear Northwestern University President, Morton O. Schapiro,

Since February 15, renowned political theorist and Northwestern African American Studies professor Dr. Barnor Hesse has been the target of an onslaught of anti-Black, racist, and violent emails and phone messages. These messages have threatened his life, in brutal detail, on numerous occasions. We, the undersigned scholars and students at Northwestern and beyond, stand in solidarity with Professor Hesse and denounce this attack on our colleague and comrade. We also reject these and other efforts to silence critical scholars and scholarship on race, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy. Furthermore, we believe that universities have a responsibility to publicly defend targeted scholars and to affirm, without equivocation, the importance of their scholarship, teaching, and mentorship.

The onslaught against Professor Hesse began after a tweet from the conservative journalist Christopher F. Rufo. Rufo, a research contributor to Donald Trump’s executive order against “critical race theory,” claimed that a New York City public school had sent white parents a document on “eight white identities” that told them “they must become ‘white traitors’ and then advocate for full ‘white abolition.’” The document was based on a heuristic Professor Hesse created for a 2013 undergraduate course, which had been placed on the internet by a student without his consent that same year. This teaching tool highlighted three types of white identity that endorsed racism and five types that opposed racism. It was meant to help students—white and nonwhite alike—engage in the critical work of deconstructing race and joining the fight against white supremacy. This work should be lauded rather than mischaracterized and demonized. However, Rufo’s sensationalistic tweet quickly went viral, and soon became a subject of conservative media outlets, such Fox News and the New York Post.

Further fanning the flames of anti-Black and right-wing hysterics and attacks on Professor Hesse, Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University, irresponsibly and erroneously tweeted that Hesse’s framework was “dangerous, racist drivel.” His tweet garnered close to 400 retweets and upwards of 2,000 likes, among which was a lecturer at the Stanford School of Engineering, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, and an advocacy group seeking to remove ethnic studies from K-12 settings. Although he has no known expertise on race and racism, Christakis took no public efforts to engage Hesse or his work. As fellow social scientists and scholars, we are deeply troubled by Christakis’ cavalier attitude and apparent disregard for Hesse’s intellectual freedom and physical safety.
 
We consider the heinous attack on Professor Hesse as part of the most recent wave of attempts to stifle and delegitimize the critical study of race, ethnic studies and anti-racist scholarship, more broadly. It is no coincidence that Trump’s now repealed attempt to ban antiracist education (as well as feminist and diversity work more broadly) came on the heels of widespread support for Black Lives Matter, which included unprecedented numbers of white (U.S.) Americans joining protests and seeking knowledge on racism and antiracism.

In particular, recent assaults against professors like Dr. Hesse—often curiously minimized or ignored by those decrying “cancel culture” on both the left and the right—reveal the fundamental importance of the critical study of whiteness. It is worth remembering that historically the study of the sociopolitical and historical construction of whiteness has been led by those who, while not afforded legitimacy by historically white institutions, could not afford ignorance of its intricacies and effects. This includes the intellectual contributions of one of the discipline’s recently recovered and now celebrated figures: W. E. B. Du Bois, for whom the analysis of White souls was as critical as Black ones. At a time when sociology and the social sciences could use more—not less—attention to the historical processes that connect contemporary racial orders to their colonial origins, Dr. Hesse’s scholarship and teaching have been necessary rejoinders to studies of race that isolate the contemporary structure of racial inequity from the historically specific (and evolving) production of whiteness.

At this moment of insurgent white supremacist movements, racialized death at the hands of police and failed health systems, and rampant racial inequalities and exclusions, we affirm the importance and legitimacy of critical scholarship on race and racial domination. We stand with Professor Hesse and others that have been unfairly criticized and violently attacked for their vital intellectual work. We also call on Northwestern and other universities and academic associations to openly denounce such attacks, build support systems, and defend targeted colleagues and intellectual communities. Professed commitments to racial equity and social justice ring hollow without such actions. Lastly, to those that believe they can frighten us into silence, know that we will not be deterred.

Sincerely,

(Initial signatories in alphabetical order by surname)

Hillary Angelo, Assistant Professor, University of California Santa Cruz
Jean Beaman, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California-Santa Barbara
Julia Behrman, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Cristina Beltrán, Associate Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University
Adia Benton, Associate professor of anthropology and African Studies, Northwestern University
Dan Berger, Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies, University of Washington Bothell
Ellen Berrey, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
Freeden Blume Oeur, Associate Professor of Sociology, Tufts University
Karida L. Brown, Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Sherwin K. Bryant, Associate Professor of African American Studies and History, Northwestern University
Anthony S. Chen, Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Northwestern University
Andy Clarno, Associate Professor of Sociology and Black Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
Jean Clipperton, Assistant Professor of Instruction, Departments of Political Science and Sociology
Yannick Coenders, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Héctor R. Cordero-Guzman, Professor, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, CUNY
Steven Epstein, Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Julie A. Dowling, Associate Professor in the Department of Latina/Latino Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Claire Decoteau, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Cedric de Leon, Professor of Sociology and Labor Center Director, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Crystal Fleming, Associate Professor Sociology and Africana Studies State University of New York at Stony Brook
Prince Grace, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Diana Graizbord, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Georgia
Julian Go, Professor of Sociology, The University of Chicago
Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Merced
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Brown University
Susila Gurusami, Assistant Professor, UIC Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice
Bright Gyamfi, PhD Candidate, History, Northwestern University
John L. Hagan, John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law, Northwestern University
Ricarda Hammer, PhD candidate, Brown University
Daniel Hirschman, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Brown University
Kimberly Kay Hoang, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Global Studies, University of Chicago
Chloe J. Jones, PhD Student, African American Studies, Northwestern University
prabhdeep singh kehal, PhD Candidate, Brown University
Sunmin Kim, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Faculty Affiliate, the Consortium of Studies in Race, Migration, and Sexuality (RMS), Dartmouth College
Kristina Lee, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Amanda Lewis, Professor of Black Studies & Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
James Mahoney, Gordon Fulcher Professor in Decision-Making and Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Northwestern University
Julie Lee Merseth, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University
Christopher Montague, PhD Student, African American Studies, Northwestern University
G. Cristina Mora, Associate Professor of Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies (courtesy), UC Berkeley
Ann Morning, Associate Professor of Sociology, New York University.
Aldon Morris, Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Northwestern University
Jennifer Mueller, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Intergroup Relations Program, Skidmore College
Andrew V. Papachristos, Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
 Christine Percheski, Associate Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Margaret Power, Professor of History, Illinois Tech.
katrina quisumbing king, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Victor Ray, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology and African American Studies, The University of Iowa
Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Latina/o Studies, Northwestern University
Mary Romero, Professor Emerita, Arizona State University
Jonathan Rosa, Associate Professor of Education and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University
Michael L. Rosino, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Molloy College
kihana miraya ross, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Northwestern University
Mérida M. Rúa, Professor, Latina and Latino Studies, Northwestern University
David Schieber, Assistant Professor of Instruction, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Shalini Shankar, Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies, Northwestern University
Nitasha Sharma, Director of Asian American Studies, Northwestern University
Carrie Stallings, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Quincy Thomas Stewart, Associate Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
James M. Thomas, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Mississippi
Helen Tilley, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
Keala Uchôa, Class of 2022 Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Robert Vargas, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago (Alum of the Graduate School, Class of 2012)
Tracy L. Vaughn-Manley, Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Professor of Instruction and Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Northwestern University
Melissa F. Weiner, Associate Professor of Sociology, College of the Holy Cross
Luna White, PhD student, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Ji-Yeon Yuh, Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies, Northwestern University
Sylvia Zamora, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Loyola Marymount University


To become a signatory to this letter, please sign-on below. To see full signatory list: https://bit.ly/3ecZ0Gu

Sign in to Google to save your progress. Learn more
Name, Title, and Affiliation                                                 *
(e.g., John Doe, Associate Professor of History, Logan University)
Email *
Submit
Clear form
Never submit passwords through Google Forms.
This content is neither created nor endorsed by Google. Report Abuse - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy