The Inter Faculty Organization condemns the brutal killing of George Floyd by officers of the Minneapolis Police Department. We share the pain and trauma that this horrific tragedy has inflicted on people of color in particular and on our community in general. The institutionalized racism resulting in such callous disregard of a Black man’s life, and impenetrable disregard of the pleas from Mr. Floyd and from bystanders – is a haunting but clear signal of the MPD’s destructive culture that must be rooted out. It is a tragic reminder that, without profound cultural change in institutions, violence and injustice against people of color will not be curtailed.

We are determined to do what we can where we are: to ever more steadfastly renew our own commitment – each of us – to respect the lives of those historically marginalized, to empower them and the bystanders who stand with them as allies for justice and equity, and to build a transformed culture of inclusion and equity that will endure.