June 28, 2020 Dear Chancellor Linda Hasenfratz, President and Vice-Chancellor Alan Shepard, Rick Konrad and the Board of Governors, and Western University Leadership Team: We are responding to Western University’s President Alan Shepard and the Department of Psychology’s recent statements about J. Philippe Rushton (Rushton). Both statements fail to mitigate the harm caused by Western’s refusal to censure an overtly racist professor during his tenure from 1977-2012. Today, his work continues to be used as foundational source material by white supremacists and eugenicists globally to justify race-based violence and acts of hate. Any response needs to address the ongoing impact of this work including an unequivocal repudiation of its validity, implementing measures to prevent reoccurrence, a public statement both acknowledging the significant damage done, and disassociating the University from Rushton and his racist beliefs entirely. We are a group of Black alumni, mostly first-generation university students, having attended Western in the 1980s-90s, a period during Rushton’s tenure when Western’s silence allowed racism to permeate all levels of academic experience. We all suffered the callousness and casual dehumanization caused by his propaganda linking race and intelligence. There is ample research on the impact of stress, microaggressions and racism on Black lives. The trauma some of us experienced while at Western continues to negatively impact our lives to this day. While any one incident involving racism is enough to break one’s spirit, navigating repeated exposure, in various forms, is exhausting, diminishing, and often debilitating. As students, we would see Rushton in the Psychology Department, lecture halls and on campus. He would say things to provoke a reaction and once actually feigned an injury in a failed attempt to entrap a Black student. His protected status as a tenured professor placed us in a position of defending our intelligence and right to study at Western. We were repeatedly expected to explain the problems with his research, and consequently to defend our own intelligence in classes and dormitories. Instead of studying and exploring collegiate life, our energy was spent writing letters, marching, and trying to raise awareness. We were responsible for bringing Dr. David Suzuki to campus on February 8, 1989 to rebut Rushton and his flawed, pseudo-scientific research. As students, we pursued different strategies to bring accountability. For example, law students organized to have Rushton investigated for violating Canadian hate-speech laws. Another contingent of students met with former Western President Dr. K. George Pedersen, who said he would not take any action because once we left campus everything would be forgotten. Ultimately, that’s exactly what came to pass. Systemic racism has continued in the classroom and at the institution to this day. And, Rushton’s racist legacy lives on as demonstrated by a recent June 24, 2020 ​CBC article​ reporting on racist fliers sent to apartment units in Waterloo, that the police are investigating as a possible hate crime. The ​flier​ adopts Rushton’s view that Black people are intellectually inferior to white people, and added additional racist claims for good measure. Between 1977 and 2012 Western benefited from the funding Rushton attracted. A significant portion of those funds came from the Pioneer Fund, an organization that has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature, and designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It has been reported that Rushton’s year 2000 tax records show the Pioneer Fund awarded him with $473,835, 73% of that year’s grants. Until 2009 this fund continued to award him approximately $100,000 annually. These funds were all issued through Western. President Shepard’s published response​ to the Anti-Racism Working Group Report (ARWG) does not mention what will be done to prevent support of questionable scientific research from happening again. It does not adequately address the impact of the trauma perpetrated against Black students. It also doesn’t acknowledge that Western’s failure to censure Rushton resulted in validation of his work and made him one of the most prominent scientists in race-based research. Describing his work as simply “controversial,” rather than racist, diminishes the longitudinal harm it caused. And, it ignores the reach of his racist writing, minimizing Rushton’s publications and his participation at conferences promoting white supremist ideology in Canada, the US, and elsewhere. Western allowed Rushton to hide behind tenure and the shield of academia for decades, as he provided an intellectual foundation and framework for racists to perpetrate discriminatory behavior against black and brown people, to deny them opportunities, and to even take their lives. Western’s claim that it was unaware that the Pioneer Fund, Rushton’s biggest financial donor, focused on supporters of white supremacist ideology, rings hollow. There are publications going back 30 years detailing the Pioneer Fund’s focus. For example, in his article, ​The Pioneer Fund: Bankrolling the Professors of Hate​, in ​The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education​, No. 6 (Winter 1994-1995), pgs. 58-61, Adam Miller, noted that “the Pioneer Fund dispenses about $1 million a year to academics, most of whom do research related to establishing a genetic basis for differences in intelligence and personality.” (p. 58) In 1994, then Pioneer Fund Treasurer, John B. Trevor, Jr., “was a longtime official of the Coalition of Patriotic Societies, which in 1942 was named in a US Justice Department sedition indictment for pro-Nazi activities. Trevor was the group’s treasurer in 1962 when it called for the release of all Nazi war criminals, and announced its support for South Africa’s ‘well-reasoned racial policy.’” (p. 59.) Miller named academics who received funding from the Pioneer Fund, including Rushton, who received $770,738 in grants. (p. 60.) Henry Garrett, Pioneer Fund Director from 1972 until his death in 1973, was a featured witness for the segregationists in ​Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka​, the 1954 US Supreme Court case that ordered school integration. Garrett argued against integration because “blacks’ genetically inferior intelligence would require leveling the curriculum, which would leave whites bored and blacks frustrated.” (p. 60.) Rushton led the Pioneer Fund from 2002 until his death in 2012. The year Rushton began leading the Fund, Georgia State University Law Professor, Paul Lombardo, published an article titled, ​“The American Breed”: Nazi eugenics and the origins of the Pioneer Fund.​ In his Abstract, Professor Lombardo noted that “[​m]en with Nazi sympathies began the Pioneer Fund; their patently eugenic aspirations continue to guide Pioneer today.” (Lombardo, Paul. (2002). "The American Breed": Nazi eugenics and the origins of the Pioneer Fund. Albany Law Review. 65. 743-830.) Thus, there was no mystery to the Pioneer Fund or the basis of its support for Rushton. Western knew, or intentionally turned a blind eye, to the racism inherent in the Pioneer Fund, and those for whom it provided support. Consequently, President Shepard’s response misses the mark. “The Report makes special mention of the research performed by the late Philippe Rushton, a faculty member at Western from 1977 until his death in 2012. For some of his career Rushton pursued work on race and intelligence. That work produced great controversy in several directions: notably heated challenges to the work itself and broad discussions about academic freedom in Canada. The ARWG Report asks me to acknowledge and apologize for the deep harm that has been experienced by many members of the Western community and beyond as a result of Rushton’s work. I do apologize sincerely for that deep harm that has been experienced. I acknowledge how divisive events of decades past can continue to impact the present. And I do so in the hope and conviction that Western has the opportunity to focus on the future, and to participate fully in building a better and more just world.” President Alan Shepard Most worrisome is the​ psychology department’s statement​. While it accurately notes the flaws in Rushton’s research, the statement fails to acknowledge the department’s complicity in supporting and legitimizing Rushton’s work, and consequently contributing to its detrimental impact. Without any actionable items this statement is toothless and performative. We agree with the following declaration, but what steps will be taken to prevent this from happening again? “Academic freedom and freedom of expression are critical to free scientific inquiry. However, the notion of academic freedom is disrespected and abused when it is used to promote the dissemination of racist and discriminatory concepts. Scientists have an obligation to society to speak loudly and actively in opposition of such abuse.” Department of Psychology For years Rushton was afforded the privilege of supervising graduate students and teaching undergraduate students. Added to this injury is the fact that Rushton’s work was repeatedly discredited by his peers in the scientific community but was allowed to stand at Western. Academic freedom cannot happen without social responsibility. We respect the efforts of the ​ARWG​ and give qualified support to the recommendations. There is much work to be done to implement Western’s commitment to diversity and the desire for all students, faculty, and staff to feel safe and welcomed on campus. In our opinion, the ARWG final report does not adequately recommend actions that will prevent the type of harm generated by Rushton with Western’s support from being repeated in the future. Pg. 11 “It is the pervasive disregard for Black peoples that enabled Western psychology professor Philippe Rushton to propagate epistemic racial violence under the guise of ‘scientific research’ in the late 1980s and 1990s. Professor Rushton’s research—and Western’s defence of it in order to uphold the principle of ‘academic freedom’—revealed a profound devaluation of Black lives that continues today.” Pg. 20 Institutional Communications (Recommendations) a. Acknowledge and apologize for the harm caused by the scientific racism propagated under the guise of psychological research conducted by Philippe Rushton at The University of Western Ontario in the 1980s and 1990s. b. Make a public commitment to structural change and action that redresses harm and inequities (including the harms done by Philippe Rushton) and moves Western forward to becoming a safer, more respectful, more inclusive place to be. What additional measures will Western take to correct this and prevent future reoccurrences? On behalf of Black alumni, in addition to the recommendations set out in the ARWG Final Report, we wish to see the following Thirteen (13) Actions: 1. A mandated clause in Western’s ethics approval review system to prevent the acceptance and/or use of funds provided by organizations that promote hate, such as the Pioneer Fund; 2. A mandated clause in Western’s ethics approval review system to ensure support of indisputable, ethical, non-racist academic research; 3. Recognition, financial support, and amplification of efforts by those who are conducting research critical to diminishing the dissemination of racist agendas in science across myriad disciplines; 4. The establishment of a minimum of five new annual fellowships earmarked to attract the next generation of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to continue this work; 5. Recruitment committees to be held accountable to increase the hiring of more Black faculty as well as faculty from underrepresented groups; 6. An endowed multi-disciplinary research chair that focuses on the study of systemic, scientific racism and anti-Black racism; 7. The establishment of a robust first-generation curriculum for Black Students​ with resources and networks to support students through the college experience and beyond; 8. Establish a process to review and redesign curriculum to be more inclusive of critical Black scholarship and Black studies particularly in the Department of Psychology; 9. Develop pedagogical workshops for faculty to support practices of responding to and challenging the ways in which anti-Black racism operates within classrooms; 10. More diverse representation in your marketing and alumni communications highlighting the achievements of black alumni around the world; 11. An unequivocal public repudiation of the validity and viability of Rushton’s work and an admission to its link to proponents of hate and white supremacy via the Pioneer Fund; 12. A public statement acknowledging the significant damage and impact of Rushton’s work on former black and even current black students and a statement disassociating the University from him and his racist beliefs entirely; 13. Black Presence on both the Senior Management Team and the Board of Directors. Several decades have passed without substantive change. If not now, when? We are at a moment in history when genuine effort is put into examining and rectifying systems fraught with racial injustice and inequality. A thorough examination of the stain of Rushton’s racist legacy, and the eradication of the system that supported it, are in order. We want to ensure a quantifiable measure of change for black students and scholars moving forward. As we plan our future philanthropic investments and consider the universities our children will attend, we hope that our alma mater will raise the bar and stand accountable. We look forward to hearing from you within the next 48 hours to schedule a time to discuss our concerns and recommendations in their entirety. Signed, Black at Western Alumni