“Social Injustice and Police Violence in the United States” — the third social justice teach-in sponsored by the Virginia Tech Department of History — is being held in solidarity with the Scholar Strike of 2020.

The teach-in will serve as a forum for the Virginia Tech community to have a dialogue about racism, social injustice, and police violence against Black men and women in the United States.

Speakers will include:

  • Nick Anthony, a Virginia Tech student majoring in history;
  • Elysia Budu, a recent Virginia Tech graduate (History and Political Science ’20);
  • Dennis Halpin, an associate professor in the Department of History;
  • Allan Lumba, an assistant professor in the Department of History; and
  • Amber Mundy, a Virginia Tech student majoring in criminology and sociology.

The event will take place on Tuesday, September 8, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. via Zoom. To receive the link for the event, register here.

The Scholar Strike that the Virginia Tech event is being held in solidarity with began after Anthea Butler, an associate professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, tweeted, “I would be down as a professor to follow the NBA and Strike for a few days to protest police violence in America.”  

Within several hours, historian Kevin Gannon, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Grand View University, had joined Butler in co-organizing Scholar Strike — a work stoppage and virtual, public teach-in on police violence and racism by professors nationally — on September 8 and 9.

Both Butler and Gannon will be guests at another virtual event on September 8 at 7:00 p.m. Matthew Gabriele, chair of the Virginia Tech Department of Religion and Culture, and Varsha Venkatasubramanian, a graduate student in history at the University of California, Berkeley, will co-host a special installment of their webinar series, “Drinking with Historians.” “Scholar Strike with Anthea Butler and Kevin Gannon” will explore collective action and the academy and why that’s important.

Additional video resources are available on the YouTube channel of Scholar Strike. “The channel will present new content every two hours for the length of the strike,” said Shaila Mehra, assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. “The videos, which are created by scholars and are about 10 minutes long, are excellent for classroom purposes.”

Past College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences teach-ins on social justice can be found here.