NORTHAMPTON — After a heated week for the Smith College School for Social Work, protests alleging institutional racism culminated in a tearful ceremony Friday.
About 135 graduating students in the master’s and doctorate-level programs gathered with families, friends and faculty in the John M. Greene Hall of the campus, giving no immediate signs of the tumult of recent weeks.
Boisterous outbursts echoed throughout the hall as students filed into their seats.
Students began mobilizing against what they see as systemic racism at the start of the summer. This week, 250 students gathered to denounce letters that they believe contained coded racism.
Both an anonymous letter signed by “concerned adjuncts” and one written by Professor Dennis Miehls — both addressed to school leaders — expressed concern for the types of students allowed into the program. The letters said the racism students are alleging is either nonexistent or exaggerated, with Miehls’ letter calling the admissions process “tainted.”
Miehls, who has not responded this week to requests for comment, was not at the commencement.
“The faculty uses a deliberative process to resolve conflict, and this process will take place while keeping Professor Miehls’ freedom of speech in mind,” school spokeswoman Myrna Flynn told the Gazette.
Flynn said the college welcomed input from students.
“As it has throughout its decades-long commitment to become an anti-racism institution, Smith’s School for Social Work has welcomed, encouraged and depended on students in order to realize the many goals that are part of that pledge,” she said. “All voices are valued. All help to hold the people in our community accountable. And events like those on campus this week assist in moving the community forward.”
School leaders spoke highly of the graduating students during Friday’s ceremony, most of whom were involved in Tuesday’s noon protest at Seelye Hall.
“You were always the students we wanted, and you are the alumni we are proud to claim,” said Dean Marianne Yoshioka.
One of the protest organizers, Manuel Ortiz, won this year’s “student of the year award” in part for his “wise, thoughtful and caring approach” to activism.
Crying as he spoke about the several trips his father made to be in the country, including once in the engine compartment of a truck, he thanked the hall.
“This award is not one I can take just on my own,” Ortiz said.
Yoshioka said the world would be a better place if more injustice were resisted. “Imagine the change if injustice were always challenged,” she said. “We would be transformed.”
Such transformations, she said, are “not neat.”
“The world needs you more than ever,” said President Kathleen McCartney. “You modeled your commitment to equity, justice and healing this summer.”
Smith, she said, is stronger for it.
“We will be a better community for your actions and commitment,” McCartney said.
Class speaker Maki Camacho, 28, began her address by tearfully thanking her family.
“I don’t know where you are,” she said, looking out into the crowd. Several of her family members stood up and signaled their location, their eyes glistening.
“Este es para ustedes,” she said in Spanish, her voice breaking. In English: “This is for you.”
Camacho deployed metaphor to make her point. People, she said, are trees, and together we make a forest. The fruit we bear, she said, can be good or bad.
“We are getting rid of rotten fruit right now, my friends,” she said. “We are one hell of a powerful force, let me tell you.”
Systemic racism, she said, is a rotten fruit that needs ousting.
“Progress doesn’t stop just like trees don’t stop growing,” Camacho said. “Smith, let’s not stop with this summer — it would be a true disservice.”
Throughout the proceedings, faculty and graduating students referred to the fight against racism as part and parcel of social work.
Accepting an award for distinguished faculty, Susan Donner, who is white, said, “I have an awareness that there are so many others who deserve it just as much. If not more.”
Adjunct faculty member Edith Fraser, who was also honored, said that although both of her parents were high school dropouts, they were the social workers of her neighborhood because of their generosity, advocacy and sense of social justice.
“We were not allowed to go to stores where we couldn’t try on clothes,” said Fraser, who is black.
The work they started, she said, has sent a ripple effect in motion, just like that of the graduating class, if they have the “audacity to hope.”
In the commencement address, CarmenLeah Ascencio — public health social worker, yoga teacher and director of programs for Black Girl Dangerous, a nonprofit civil rights project — spoke to resistance and the fight against injustice that unifies social workers.
“We have all chosen a very hard, yet heart-filled profession,” she said. “Relish in the joy of resistance.”
When it comes to dismantling institutional racism, she said, social workers should think outside the box.
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” she said, quoting civil rights activist Audre Lorde.
“What do I need to unlearn?” she asked people in the crowd to ask themselves. “More of the same will never get us free.”
Joyful shouts filled the room as school leaders conferred degrees, with Bamidele drummers rumbling the room to mark the ceremony’s end. The exiting crowd trampled a hand-scrawled sign with another quote from Lorde: “Your silence will not protect you.”
Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@gazettenet.com.