The 25 critical issues Black student leaders identified to University of Maryland administration in 2020 will be reestablished online, this university’s vice president for diversity and inclusion Georgina Dodge told The Diamondback Tuesday.
This university plans to continue working towards fulfilling the 25 demands, university president Darryll Pines told The Diamondback on Wednesday.
As of last Thursday, this university’s diversity and inclusion office website no longer displays a dashboard, published in 2021, that tracks the university’s progress on fulfilling the 25 demands.
Pines asked five Black students to make the list of demands for the university to address after George Floyd’s murder and the rise of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, The Diamondback reported. Some of the 25 demands included hiring more Black faculty, creating Black cultural spaces and ending campus police militarization.
But the site now contains two paragraphs that mention the demands’ existence.
[Diamondback Special Project: Behind the 25 Demands]
The demands will likely return to the diversity and inclusion office’s website under a firewall that requires a login, which students, faculty and staff will likely have access to, Dodge said.
“We know that DEI programs are under attack,” Dodge told The Diamondback after she spoke with community members about diversity, equity and inclusion concerns at Nyumburu Cultural Center. “I see no reason to provide attackers with a list of DEI programs.”
The website was also “part of the rotation” to be updated for accessibility and because it is five years old, Dodge added. Copies of the demands can be provided to students easily, she said.
“We don’t want that history to be lost,” Dodge said.
[UMD takes down dashboard tracking 25 demands made by Black student leaders]
Pines said the initial removal of the 25 demands dashboard is not in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. After Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI, several universities across the country have altered websites mentioning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“Our values and our mission and our commitment to diversity is not going to change,” Pines said.
Individual vice presidents, deans and unit heads will determine “the best interest for their communities” regarding webpages, Pines said.
“We are in the process of reviewing and updating the content originally presented on the dashboard,” this university’s diversity and inclusion office wrote in a statement to The Diamondback on Thursday.
This university referred to Dodge’s comments in response to The Diamondback’s request for comment on Tuesday.
News editor Natalie Weger contributed to this report.
