A Message of Solidarity from Dean Figlio

Dear members of the SESP family,

Those of you who know me personally know that I am by nature an optimistic person. But this most challenging of seasons – and especially the events of the past week following the senseless murder of George Floyd – has left me grieving.

The systemic racial injustice that is present in America is shameful. I realize that I am extraordinarily privileged to be a white man in this society, and that a core essence of my privilege is not knowing the exact extent of just how privileged I am. Month after month, year after year, I learn of yet another banal thing that I can do without even thinking about it. Something that could get some of my friends and neighbors stopped, or harassed, or questioned – or even killed. 

Add to that the fundamental inequalities in American society that this pandemic has made plain as day – and the attendant disproportionality of the health and economic impacts of this pandemic borne by communities of color – and many people who are much stronger than I have been pushed to the breaking point. There is no way that I can comprehend the pain and fear and grief and rage that so many people I know and love and respect, and countless people whom I don’t know, are experiencing right now. But I recognize that this too is part of my unearned privilege.

I wish I could tell you SESP had all the answers. But here is where I am optimistic. So many amongst us – myself included – have devoted our careers to documenting and combating the inequalities inherent in the United States and elsewhere in the world. I can think of dozens of examples of ways in which you have worked to make things better, bit by bit. I have faith that members of the SESP family – our staff and faculty and students and alumni – will continue to be part of the change that makes our society more just and equitable and decent and honorable. I learn so much from you, and I pledge to do everything I can to listen actively and amplify the creative and forward-thinking ideas that so many of you are sure to come up with. 

I recognize that I have an obligation to attempt to understand what I will never be able to fully comprehend. Now is the time for me to spend as much time as I can reading and re-reading the works of people like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo and Ijeoma Oluo and Isabel Wilkerson and Ta-Nehisi Coates – whose childhood home and mine were a stone’s throw apart but who experienced a vastly different Baltimore than I did. Now is the time for Anne and me to donate as much of our time, talent, and treasure to organizations that support communities ravaged by the pandemic and by racial injustice. And, as your dean, now is the time to reaffirm that I am here for you, ready to embrace (virtually, for now) all of you who are hurting, and yearning for a day when we can embrace physically again, and even moreso for a day when we live in a society where the pain is less severe.

In solidarity, and with love, 

David N. Figlio (pronouns: he/him/his)
Orrington Lunt Professor and Dean
School of Education and Social Policy
Northwestern University