Faculty postpone vote on Indigenous People's Day Senate resolution

On Feb. 4, faculty members of the School of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering considered a resolution passed by the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate to rename what is currently referred to as Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day.

During the meeting, Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences Jack Ridge spoke on behalf of a coalition of faculty members who argued that more robust modifications to the Senate's current plan, beyond just rebranding the holiday, should be pursued to try to amend some of the ills indigenous people experience, according to Professor in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures Christiane Zehl Romero.

“The faculty has postponed a vote, at this point, until the 25^th of March, and the Senate has been informed and asked to come up with a proposal which includes not only a name change, but also proposals to do something concrete for indigenous people,” Zehl Romero told the Daily in an email.

Ridge explained that the coalition's motivation for delaying the decision was primarily fueled by a desire to do something more original than simply changing the name of the holiday, which various other institutions have done. He also emphasized that he wants the university to implement policies that will elevate the community's sensitivity to modern American Indians.

“I wanted actions at Tufts to go beyond the actions at other schools, so that we weren’t just following in their footsteps, and to have an appreciation for not only what Columbus’ arrival symbolized to indigenous people in the past but also a recognition that we haven’t really come to grips with our poor treatment of Native Americans today,” Ridge told the Daily in an email.

“The impact of Columbus’ arrival is still very real to Native Americans," he said. "I thought we should acknowledge this in our effort to honor indigenous people and challenge the community at Tufts to do better than efforts at other schools.”

Ridge continued to describe the source of his desire to increase the university's support of Native American history and identities, noting that in spite of Christopher Columbus’ invaluable role as an explorer, a lot of myth enshrouds his role in the discovery and colonization of North America. He asserted that the role Columbus played upon arriving at the continent is something that indigenous peoples would not want the rest of society to promote or celebrate.

TCU Senator Genesis Garcia and former TCU Senator Andrew Nuñez, both seniors, spearheaded student efforts to change the name of the holiday, and were the representatives who originally brought the initiative before TCU Senate. Now,  Ridge and other faculty members have charged Garcia and Nuñez with taking the lead to revise the existing initiative before the faculty reconsiders it in late March.

TCU President Robert Joseph explained that Nuñez previously held the position of diversity and community affairs officer, and that he and Garcia presented the senators with this initiative at the Senate’s first meeting in the fall.

“I could tell that Andrew and Genesis had been thinking about this quite a bit. It wasn’t something they decided to do spur of the moment or the day before. It was definitely well thought out,” Joseph, a senior, said.

Joseph explained that when a resolution is proposed to the Senate, the authors of the resolution are allotted five minutes to discuss the content of the resolution and their reasons for putting it forward before the Senate, which is followed by a period of about 10 minutes set aside to pose questions to the resolution's authors.

Finally, a motion of the resolution occurs, and if the resolution is moved and receives no objection, the Senate takes a vote, and the resolution will either pass or be objected, in which case it can be debated or amended further, he explained. If the Senate is in favor of a resolution’s passage, as was the case for the resolution to rename Columbus Day, the Senate brings it to the administrators who are relevant to the resolution in question, according to Joseph.

In the case of the resolution to rename Columbus Day, according to Joseph, the faculty hold ownership of the academic calendar and therefore the names of particular holidays, so the resolution went to them.

“There is a hope that we will be able to turn the day into a day of education … at a liberal arts and engineering school like ours, we would hope that the faculty would be able to understand the history and the oppression that has occurred and that they would want to do what they can, as small as it may be as changing the name of the holiday at the school, to rectify that injustice,” Joseph said.

First-year Ari Gizzi, a resident of Berkeley, Calif., where Indigenous People’s Day originated, explained that back at home the city holds a Pow Wow and Indian Market to commemorate the enduring spirit of indigenous peoples who were affected by Columbus’ arrival in North America, focusing on the local Ohlone people.

“Renaming the holiday to Indigenous People’s Day is really important. They changed the name of it in 1992 in Berkeley; I’ve never even known the holiday as Columbus Day," Gizzi said. "I agree with the faculty in that more could be done to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day beyond renaming the holiday, in that maybe there should be a festival on Tufts’ campus. I think it is important for people to also be aware of the customs and traditions of the indigenous people who lived in their area."