With relief efforts surging around campus and the country, nine University professors gathered Wednesday evening to discuss Hurricane Katrina and its consequences.

The forum, entitled “Storms, Politics, and the Destruction of the American Gulf Coast: A Washington University Faculty Roundtable on What Hurricane Katrina Wrought,” was organized by the American Culture Studies department, the Center for the Humanities, the Center for Joint Projects in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Center on Urban Research and Policy.

The professors’ areas of expertise spanned many aspects of the tragedy, and they expressed diverse views in their analysis of its effects. Among the concerns discussed were public policy, the environment, rebuilding the region, economic effects, and law.

Many professors saw race as the main issue.

Assistant history professor Leslie Brown said that she saw “the legacy of Jim Crow” revealed in the hurricane’s aftermath. She explained that African Americans were restricted to the Ninth Ward, a region especially susceptible to flooding. Brown said that America had forgotten the poor, and challenged our society to “get started on the poverty problem.”

Professor James Herbert Williams of the School of Social Work echoed Brown’s remarks, calling the hurricane “a man-made disaster in addition to a natural disaster,” also noting that 66 percent of the affected area’s residents were African American, with 45 percent of the residents living below the poverty line.

“[Society views them as] people who don’t belong to us,” Williams said. “New Orleans will be rebuilt, but what will these people be returning to?”

Wayne Fields, director of the American Culture Studies department, said the situation is “fundamentally about how we deal with one another, how classes relate to one another.”

“Nothing has changed,” said Fields, recalling the damage of the 1920 Mississippi River flood. “The true nature of the social contract in America has been revealed [through the hurricane].”

The topics of economy and reconstruction also drew several sharp remarks.

Assistant Professor of Economics Donald Nichols analyzed the storm’s economic impact, noting that while the catastrophe created a “huge amount of poverty and unemployment” and deprived the country of several imports, the long-term situation will increase jobs and growth. He emphasized that more opportunities should be given to New Orleans locals to work once the rebuilding process begins.

Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor Robert Francis Dymek disagreed, questioning the wisdom of rebuilding New Orleans (which lies eight feet below sea level) and asserting that such a disaster “will happen again.”

Law Professor Chris Bracey explained the litigation opportunities afforded by the catastrophe, including insurance claims, personal injury suits, and a variety of other legal actions that might be taken in the storm’s aftermath. He said that New Orleans’ entire legal system had been erased, leaving the government with no way to prosecute those who broke the law in the days following the storm.

“I agonize over this event as an American patriot,” said linguistics professor John Baugh, the forum’s moderator. He said that after speaking with colleagues from South Africa and France, he realized racism is still “a global problem.”

After Baugh gave the panelists a second chance to speak, the floor was opened up to questions from the audience.

An Australian man brought up the global effects of the storm, mentioning its relation to the tsunamis of late 2004. Andrea Dube, a transfer student from Tulane, explained her situation and asked about New Orleans’ future as a city.

“This is an opportunity to improve the city and the lives of its people,” said Dube.

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