Following statements from the Queen’s Principal and the Chemical Institute of Canada, we at the Queen’s Chemistry Department condemn anti-Black racism. The events of the past few weeks have emphasized the serious and systemic racial injustices and violence that are and have historically been committed against Black people, Indigenous peoples, and minorities in Canada.
We have an urgent obligation to act against the ideology of white supremacy and institutionalized racism that is experienced by Black chemists in Canada. As discussed in C&EN, our discipline continues to fail to recruit, retain, and support Black students, or to hire and promote Black chemists to faculty positions.
The Department of Chemistry at Queen’s University has a vision to become the most collaborative and diverse in Canada, and we recognize that there is significant work to be done to achieve this. We are taking the following actions
- We will write and establish a Code of Conduct that will ensure discriminatory behaviours and language are not acceptable in our Department.
- We commit to self-education on the past and current racial injustices in chemistry and will not burden Black and Indigenous people with this invisible work.
- We will begin the process to create Chemistry Graduate Awards for Black and Indigenous students. These will complement the recent university-wide awards for racialized students at Queen’s.
- This year we created the Queen’s Chemistry Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigeneity Award, which is annual awarded to a graduate student and fully funds them to attend the LOGIC Retreat and also covers travel to the CCCE Conference.
- We are in the process of creating a new member resource group, a chapter of the CWIC, that is aimed at promoting equity and inclusion for women and minorities in our Department.
The Queen's Chemistry Department commits to tackling anti-Black racism and affirming through direct action that Black lives matter.
Resources:
Resource list from the Queen’s Black Academic Society.
Anti-racism resources for white and non-Black/Indigenous people
Decolonizing science reading list, by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Donate:
Black Lives Matter Toronto (Toronto)
Black Legal Action Centre (Ontario)
Nia Centre for the Arts (Toronto)
Black Women In Motion (Toronto)