“Although the task force [is] currently done, I would argue that students probably don’t feel like it’s the end. In this whole attack on higher education, which happened to be coinciding with this proposed task force — whether or not those are connected, I can’t say — it’s a scary time to be a student,” Scott said. 

Four members of the seven-person task force resigned from their roles Monday night. 

The announcement of this task force startled many students in these programs, as well as other members of the WashU community. As rumors spread about departmental reorganization and the University’s motive for the change, students nervously talked about whether their major would still exist, if their favorite professors would lose their jobs, and what classes will look like in the coming years.

WashU’s College of Arts & Sciences is forming a new task force to consider the reorganization or combination of what are currently six separate departments: African and African American Studies (AFAS); Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS); Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES); Education; Global Studies; and American Culture Studies (AMCS). 

People have fought for the right to learn about marginalized and minority identities, their cultures, and their histories at WashU. People are also actively fighting against that same right. It is imperative that students from all backgrounds take classes that involve identities other than their own. Unfortunately, this is not nearly as common as it should be.

Palestinian-Lebenese author Saree Makdisi was invited by the Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES) department on Nov. 4 to give his presentation “Tolerance is Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial” on his work about Western denial of Palestinian oppression and genocide.