Rice announces final report from university’s Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice

By Andrew Bell

On October 6, 2023

HOUSTON – (Oct. 6, 2023) – The Rice University Board of Trustees and Rice President Reginald DesRoches announced the release of the final report from the university’s Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice in a message to the university community today.

Led by Alex Byrd, vice provost for diversity, equity and inclusion, and Caleb McDaniel, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities and professor of history, the task force formally began its work in December 2019. The group’s mission is to investigate Rice’s past with respect to slavery, segregation and racial injustice; to encourage frank and honest discussion about that past; and to identify suggestions for Rice’s future.

“We are grateful for their service and commitment to deep discovery, analysis and a principled, scholarly approach to investigating Rice’s history — a process that provided commendable experiential learning for our students,” the message from Rice Board of Trustees Chairman Robert T. Ladd and DesRoches said. “Through the task force’s work, the board of trustees and the Rice community have been further educated about our history. We are proud to lead an institution that is willing to take a close and unflinching look at our past.

“As we continue to learn from our past and collectively embrace the future, we renew our commitment to excellence in all that we undertake.”

Since its inception, the task force, consisting of students, faculty, staff and alumni, has conducted substantial public and stakeholder engagement and research and has launched numerous initiatives to address its three-part charge.

“We have conducted our work during a period of historic change at the university and beyond. What has not changed, though, is the vital mission of research universities like ours: to pursue knowledge freely for the betterment of the world, and to follow evidence wherever it leads — even when new evidence challenges conventional wisdom, and especially when the evidence exposes a university’s own errors,” Byrd and McDaniel stated in the report.

To view the full report, click here.

This piece was republished from Rice University News.