Diversity Commission

Eracism Project

October, 2003

This project began with a public forum at UMD exploring the existence of racism on campus and in our local communities. Using short video clips from the PBS series Matters of Race to identify specific topics related to racism, regional facilitators from the broader Duluth community helped small groups discuss and offer input on these important questions:

Does the problem shown in the video clip exist in the Duluth community?
Does this problem exist in our colleges?
If the problem does exist, what can we do about it?

The small groups reported back on the strategies they have developed which formed the basis for action-based activities as the next stage of the Eracism Project.

In addition to Diversity Commission members, a number of community members participated as small group leaders and panelists. Among the participants were Maxine Taylor, Duluth Police Chief Roger Waller, ISD 709 representative Bruce Watkins, ISD 709 Desegregation Committee member Portia Johnson, NAACP members Carl Crawford and Claudie Washington. Students from the various UMD multicultural learning resource groups participated in a moving closing program.

Moving from Racism to Eracism requires increased awareness of issues of racism, public dialogue about these issues as they relate to the region and campus, commitment to the ideal of respectful inclusion of all people in a productive and culturally rich environment, and development and implementation of an on-going action plan to accomplish this. This public forum was a step in this process, involving over 200 participants from UMD and the broader Duluth community.