Decolonial Accountability and Ethics in Higher Education

• In Event: 63.033 - Reimagining the Modern/Colonial University: Toward Alternative Horizons of Higher Education Otherwise

Abstract

From Calhoun College to Saunders or Mulledy Halls, what values are upheld in a name? These formerly honored members of the Yale, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Georgetown campuses point to a broader panoply of university leaders who contributed to white supremacist ideas and practices in both their intellectual and political work (Chan, 2016; Georgetown University, 2016; Peart, 2017). Wilder (2013) documents the scope of this history, chronicling the accumulation of institutional wealth through slave labor, stolen Indigenous land and knowledge, and the supposedly scientific studies of race that aimed to justify the superiority of Western culture. Higher education in the U.S. - whether elite ivy league campuses, public land-grant institutions, or Jesuit-driven in mission - must, therefore, be situated as not merely complicit, but key institutions through which racial-colonial violence has historically been legitimized.

Many universities have begun to publicly acknowledge these histories and their enduring legacies through campus-specific initiatives, such as research centers, conferences, and public statements of apology. Yet how do these responses continue to limit our understandings about the scope and scale of racial-colonial harms not only historically, but in the contemporary workings of higher education? What ethical responsibilities do universities have – as institutions committed to evidenced-based practices of scientific and humanistic inquiry– to address these conditions of possibility of higher education?

Drawing from anti-colonial theories of ethics and justice (Silva, 2007 & 2013), I examine a range of campus endeavors and consider the ethical limits of current forms of institutional recognition as a mode of redress. I focus on Georgetown’s initiative to offer admissions benefits to family members -the direct descendants of the formerly enslaved people sold by the university- as an illustrative example that simultaneously claims accountability while also foreclosing responsibility (Georgetown University, 2016). In conversation with more recent demands authored by the descendants, which instead ask that the university offer financial restitution, I discuss how decolonial forms of ethics and ‘answerability’ are necessary starting points of accountability within higher education (Patel, 2016).

Author

• Sheeva Sabati, University of California - Santa Cruz