Racial Flashpoint Post-Mortem Analysis Tool
When a racial flashpoint occurs on campus, use this tool to address the broader context and history behind the incident to ensure your institution addresses the root cause.
As institutions begin to address legacies of racism on their campuses, many leaders have yet to acknowledge the connections between their history and present-day flashpoints. Often in the form of protests from the community, racial flashpoints are indicators of existing racial tensions and challenges on campus. In order to accurately identify and address the root causes of flashpoints, it is critical to investigate and connect their historical origins with current issues on campus.
After experiencing a campus racial flashpoint, vice presidents for student affairs and/or
chief diversity officers and their teams should examine whether the flashpoint has a
history of reoccurring on campus in order to accurately identify and meaningfully address the underlying root of the issue.
Examples of recurring flashpoints with historical roots:
- Student demands for greater BIPOC faculty representation
- Increasing Indigenous student activism
- Frayed institutional relationships with local communities of color
Racial flashpoint post-mortem analysis
After responding to the incident, use the following tools at your next team meeting to evaluate the racial flashpoint within the broader context of your institution’s legacy of historical harm. Use our flashpoint analysis table and the guided reflection questions to determine how to address the broader context of the racial flashpoint.
Connecting racial flashpoints to your institutional history
Fill out this table to examine the chronology of a recent racial campus flashpoint and identify areas of inquiry or action that connect with your institution’s broader context of racial harm.
Guided reflection questions
As a leadership team, discuss the following questions to identify how the broader context of the racial flashpoint should be addressed:
- Reflecting on the history of the issue, how is this flashpoint connected to a deeper legacy of racial harm?
- What questions remain to better understand the underlying issues of this racial flashpoint? How will we answer these questions?
- Given our analysis of this flashpoint, how could we have responded to the incident differently? How should we respond differently to a related flashpoint in the future?
- What information would be helpful to bring to the attention of cabinet members to inform them about and deepen their understanding of this flashpoint?
- What are the immediate next steps resulting from our analysis? What findings from the analysis can be used to address the broader context and history of the racial flashpoint?
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