Even if students are willing to go back to college, some professors are not. In a letter to her students, a professor at Goucher College (a liberal arts college in Baltimore) says she won’t be there in person. Nyasha Grayman-Simpson teaches psychology and Africana studies.
She says her decision was driven by considerations around public health, social justice, and pedagogy.
“The public health and social justice concerns overlap. When we think about who is most likely to be infected, the data show that it’s people of color and low wage workers,” she notes.
Gayman-Simpson is also a mother to a 10-year-old Black boy, and an aunt to nephews in their teen and young adult years. “I couldn’t help but also think about the research that is showing that Black men in particular feel vulnerable to them being perceived as additional threats when they are masked. So I’m having visions of a small liberal arts college dimly lit at night, Black male students leaving dorms, leaving buildings masked. And the potential dangers that that could bring upon them,” she explains.