About 50 people, representing a wide array of campus and local organizations, attended the dinner discussion, which was led by African-American studies Professor Valerie Kaalund.
Kaalund focused the conversation on institutional racism in areas like scientific research, education and politics.
She opened discussion, which came just hours after the On the Wake of Emancipation Campaign sponsored a protest of campus racism, by making reference to the recently completed Human Genome Project. She said the sample from which the project was based consisted of several white families from Great Britain.
Kaalund claimed that the choice to include only white families was an example of institutional racism because the oldest human lineages are from Africa.
Accompanied by her toddler daughter Kamaria, whom she boasted to be the youngest activist in the room, Kaalund then asked the audience to address other forms of institutional racism.
Regarding education, the audience discussed several disparities in the treatment of high school students, like disproportionate publicity of white students' violent acts. "You hear a lot about school shootings in towns that are predominantly white but not in schools that are predominantly black because that seems like the norm," said Yonni Chapman, a graduate student in history and head of the Freedom Legacy Project, an effort aimed at raising awareness about past racial injustice.
The Freedom Legacy Project and Campus Y's Students for the Advancement of Race Relations sponsored the discussion.
Several students noted other institutional racism issues in education, such as economic disadvantages that predominantly black communities face frequently.
Bridgette Enloe, Campus Y co-president, noted that schools are funded through local taxes, so the quality of schools in the area is reflected through economic conditions. But Enloe said schools in areas largely populated by blacks are held to the same testing standards as schools in wealthier areas.
