Forum at California Lutheran University focuses on campus racism concerns

A campuswide forum could help heal issues at California Lutheran University during a Black History Month defined by increased racial tension, but an administrator says there’s still work ahead. 

For more than two hours on Monday night, about 2,000 students, faculty and staff members, and administrators filled Gilbert Arena on the Thousand Oaks campus to discuss race, according to Karin Grennan, a spokeswoman for the school. The forum was led by Shaun Harper, executive director of USC’s Race and Equity Center, who moderated the discussion and identified actions CLU could take to address concerns.

The event had been planned since 2019 as part of CLU’s participation in the National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates, a survey by the Race and Equity Center. The survey asked students at 21 private, public and community colleges across the country to assess how their school engaged with race on campus.

Despite its prescheduled date, the campus forum came in the wake of racist incidents that took the CLU community by storm.

At the beginning of the month, two controversial social media posts by CLU students began circulating.

One depicted a white student saying the N-word, while another reportedly showed white students lip-syncing in dark makeup. Grennan said the university is taking action regarding those involved in both incidents, but federal privacy laws prevented her from disclosing further details.

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A week later, CLU President Chris Kimball came under fire for an Instagram post by him from a Halloween event in 2014 that featured a former non-black college executive dressed as Bob Marley, Grennan said. Kimball publicly apologized for the post at a chapel service.

Additionally, CLU campus security reported that an elevator in a campus residence hall had been vandalized with a racial slur and actions were taken to remove it.

What happened at the forum

During the forum on Monday, Harper allowed students to air grievances about the recent events, participate in live polling exercises and engage in a frank discussion on the campus racial climate. In order to create a safe space for those in the campus community to freely share their beliefs, the forum was not open to the public or the media, according to Grennan.

Matthew Ward, CLU’s vice president of enrollment management and marketing, attended the forum and observed that students were initially hesitant to speak, but grew more comfortable as the event went on.

“With each subsequent testimony, more students gained the confidence to share their truths,” Ward said.

The forum also asked those present to answer questions such as “is CLU a racist campus?” and then requested those from both sides to explain why they answered that way.

One exercise that stuck out to Ward was when Harper asked those in the crowd to raise their hands if they identified as white. He then asked those with their hands up if they felt CLU adequately prepared them for engaging with a multi-racial workforce; many lowered their hands.

Ward also expressed shock at how few students said they addressed the issue of race during class discussions.

“One important takeaway was that our curriculum needs to be improved,” Ward said. “Part of having a CLU credential means being able to navigate the modern workforce.”

After the forum, several students described what had impressed them during the gathering.

“I think it was really good he didn’t just give a speech about race,” said Brittany Toney, a 19-year-old sophomore studying sociology. “He allowed everybody, no matter what they believed, to come up and voice their opinion.”

Denaya Wickett, a 20-year-old sophomore who attended with Toney, said what stood out to her was learning about prior incidents at the campus.

“I thought it was really informative that there were so many instances, and no one ever really heard about them until today,” she said. One PowerPoint slide had information about an incident 23 years ago, she said, when “they held another meeting for 300 students about racism.”

Yet racist events still happen on campus, Wickett noted. She said it seemed campus officials only sent out an email to students regarding the recent event because it blew up on social media.

Another sophomore, a 19-year-old woman who declined to give her name, praised the school’s effort to be genuinely more inclusive.

“I think the school was very clear they don’t tolerate any sort of explicit racist acts,” she said. “It’s difficult and gray in these kinds of situations, but forums like this help clear things up.”

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If an institution was truly racist, she added, “they wouldn’t hold forums like this.”

“It’s important to acknowledge that we’re not perfect,” she said. “But they’re obviously striving to become more inclusive.”

Ward said the forum was galvanizing for members of campus leadership, who are expected to meet with Harper again in May and August but felt some action needed to be taken before then. Some of the ways Ward thinks this can take place is by bolstering the school’s ethnic studies programs and implementing conclusions reached by the campus climate survey.

“I really think it was successful,” Ward said. “But there’s still some processing to do.”

Jeremy Childs is a breaking news and public safety reporter covering the night shift for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached by calling 805-437-0208 or emailing jeremy.childs@vcstar.com. Gretchen Wenner covers breaking news for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at gretchen.wenner@vcstar.com or 805-437-0270.

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