#DisruptAMS, 2020 Edition

James Solomon teaching at Morris College
From the Morris College Yearbook

Update (June 14, 2020): In solidarity with the BlackLivesMatter and the #ShutDownSTEM movements, the AMS paused its work on June 10 and convened a long (over 5 hour) meeting of the AMS Governance and Executive Staff. An initial outcome was an Action Plan which includes acknowledging the AMS's history of racist actions.

I hope you will join me in thanking AMS President Jill Pipher, the AMS Council, and all other members of the Governance and Executive Staff for taking such a quick action. Please also thank Dylan Thurston, Talitha Washington, and Catherine A. Roberts who contributed important ideas. Everyone who wrote messages asking the AMS to take action should also receive your thanks.

The Task Force that was formed has been asked to recommend actions to address the impact of discrimination and inequities. I listed some suggested actions on the blogpost "Ask not what HBCUs can do you for you...." Please take a look at the suggestions and consider offering further suggestions (as a blog comment or a message to the Task Force or....)

An easy thing to do is to read some of the other blogposts I've written about African Americans and mathematics:

1. "#MAA Disrupted, David L. Hunter"
2. "#DisruptJMM, 1960 Edition"
3. "Prof. Solomon takes exam at USC"
4. "Arnold Ross and the desegregation of Saint Louis University"
5. "Arnold Ross and the Afro-Am Student Protests"

Message to Readers

The President of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) just issued a statement about systemic racism in US society, especially in light of current events. In particular, she asks society members to reaffirm our commitment to being an inclusive community and to speaking out against injustice.

One way to reaffirm the AMS's commitment to inclusivity would be for it to acknowledge and apologize for its complicity with racial segregation during the early years of the AMS. A first step in this direction would be for the AMS Council to issue such statement.

I sent an email to the AMS President about making a statement, and perhaps you could send a similar message to the AMS Council and the AMS Board of Trustees. Below is a possible email message and a list of (what I think is) everyone's email address. Let me know (through the comments?) if you'd recommend contact information for someone that's different from what I list.

Professional mathematicians, especially those who are AMS members, have an obvious stake in how the society reaffirms its commitment to inclusivity. Many other people have a perhaps less obvious stake too. The AMS plays an important role in, for example, determining who gets to be a math professor, what gets taught in college math classes, how federal funding for STEM is used, and how STEM employers like Google and Facebook operate.

After the list of email addresses, I include some more information about racial discrimination and the AMS.

Model email for US Mathematician:

Dear [PERSON'S NAME],

My name is [YOUR NAME].  I am a member of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and [DETAILS ABOUT YOUR PROFESSIONAL STATUS].   I am writing to you in your capacity as [
AMS COUNCIL MEMBER/AMS BOARD OF TRUSTEE] in regards to AMS President Jill Pipher's June 2, 2020 message “about systemic racism and violence.”  In that message, she calls upon AMS members to reaffirm our commitment to being an inclusive community and to speaking out against injustice.

I ask that the AMS Council reaffirm this commitment by issuing a statement acknowledging and apologizing for the AMS’s complicity with segregation during the early years of the AMS.  For example, the AMS held meetings at racially segregated universities and offered separate hotel accommodations to African American participants (see e.g. the article "Mathematics and the politics of race: The case of William Claytor" by Parshall). Moreover, this was done despite the AMS having passed a non-discriminatory motion at the request of mathematicians at Fisk University.  As far as I can tell, the AMS has never formally acknowledged this history. 

African Americans mathematicians who experienced de jure segregation in higher education are still living with us today.  While the AMS cannot undo the discrimination these mathematicians experienced in early years of the AMS, the society can apologize for allowing this to have happened so that, as a mathematical community, we can heal and move forward together

Best regards,

[YOUR NAME]

Model email for non-mathematician:

Dear [PERSON'S NAME],

My name is [YOUR NAME].  I am not a member of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), but I have an interest in what the society does because [DETAILS ABOUT WHY MATH IS IMPORTANT TO YOU].  I am writing to you in your capacity as [AMS COUNCIL MEMBER/AMS BOARD OF TRUSTEE] in regards to AMS President Jill Pipher's June 2, 2020 message “about systemic racism and violence.” In that message, she calls upon AMS members to reaffirm their commitment to being an inclusive community and to speaking out against injustice.

 I ask that the AMS Council reaffirm its commitment to inclusivity by issuing a statement acknowledging and apologizing for the AMS’s complicity with segregation during the early years of the AMS.  For example, the AMS held meetings at racially segregated universities and offered separate hotel accommodations to African American participants (see e.g. the article "Mathematics and the politics of race: The case of William Claytor" by Parshall). Moreover, this was done despite the AMS having passed a non-discriminatory motion at the request of mathematicians at Fisk University.  As far as I can tell, the AMS has never formally acknowledged this history. 

African Americans mathematicians who experienced de jure segregation in higher education are still living with us today.  While the AMS cannot undo the discrimination these mathematicians experienced in early years of the AMS, the society can apologize for allowing this to have happened so that, as a mathematical community, we can heal and move forward together

Best regards,

[YOUR NAME]

I would like to add that the AMS is already doing a lot of positive things to increase the participation of African Americans in math, and the things I know about are listed in my blogpost "Ask not what HBCUs can do you for you...."

In that post, I also listed some suggestions for further things the AMS could do, especially as restitution for its complicity with segregation.  If you have additional suggestions, please add them (as comments, maybe?).

AMS Council
Jill C. Pipher: Jill_Pipher@brown.edu
Ruth Charney: charney@brandeis.edu
Abigail Thompson: thompson@math.ucdavis.edu
Francis Su: su@math.hmc.edu
Carla D. Savage:  savage@ncsu.edu
Georgia Benkart: benkart@math.wisc.edu
Brian D. Boe: brian@math.uga.edu
Michel L. Lapidus: lapidus@math.ucr.edu
Steven H. Weintraub: shw2@lehigh.edu
Jane M. Hawkins: jmh@unc.edu
Zbigniew H. Nitecki: zbigniew.nitecki@tufts.edu
Susan J. Friedlander: susanfri@usc.edu
Peter Sarnak: sarnak@math.ias.edu
Ravi Vakil: vakil@math.stanford.edu
Henry Cohn: cohn@microsoft.com
Sergey V. Fomin: fomin@umich.edu
Danny C. Calegari: dannyc@math.uchicago.edu
Robert M. Guralnick: guralnic@usc.edu
Susanne C. Brenner: brenner@math.lsu.edu
Matthew A. Papanikolas: papanikolas@tamu.edu, map@math.tamu.
Henri Darmon: darmon@math.mcgill.ca
Erika T. Camacho: erika.camacho@asu.edu
Victor Reiner: reiner@umn.edu
Brooke Shipley: shipleyb@uic.edu
Gigliola Staffilani: gigliola@math.mit.edu
Anthony Várilly-Alvarado: av15@rice.edu
Dan Freed: dafr@math.utexas.edu
Susan Loepp: sloepp@williams.edu
Kasso A. Okoudjou: kasso@math.umd.edu or kasso@mit.edu
Maria Cristina Pereyra: crisp@math.unm.edu
Melanie Matchett Wood: mmwood@berkeley.edu
Stephan Ramon Garcia: stephan.garcia@pomona.edu
Rosa C. Orellana: Rosa.C.Orellana@dartmouth.edu
Dylan P. Thurston: dpthurst@indiana.edu
Maggy Tomova: maggy-tomova@uiowa.edu
Bianca Viray: bviray@uw.edu

AMS Board of Trustees
Matthew Ando: mando@illinois.edu
Ralph L. Cohen: rlc@stanford.edu
Jane M. Hawkins: jmh@unc.edu
Bryna Kra: kra@math.northwestern.edu
Zbigniew H. Nitecki: zbigniew.nitecki@tufts.edu
Jill C. Pipher: Jill_Pipher@brown.edu
Joseph H. Silverman: joseph_silverman@brown.edu
Judy L. Walker: judy.walker@unl.edu


Documented Events 

1. At the 1936 AMS meeting at Duke University, William Claytor was barred from the (whites-only) hotel reserved for conference participants and had to stay at the private residence of an African American family.
2. In 1947, J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr. was invited by the AMS Associate Secretary to attend the annual AMS meeting held at the University of Georgia.  As an African American, Wilkins was unable to stay at the (whites-only) hotels offered by the organizers or dine at the (whites-only) restaurants they offered.  However, the AMS Associate Secretary informed him that food and lodging could be provided for him by an African American family.  Wilkins chose not participate in the meeting.
3. While a professor at Howard University, David Blackwell traveled to an AMS meeting in Virginia, but upon arriving found that he was not allowed to stay at the dormitory that had been reserved for participants.  He then left the meeting.
4. In 1951, mathematicians at Fisk University requested that the AMS insert into its bylaws "explicit and effective protection of the rights of all members to participate fully freely and equally" in its affairs without regard to race.  The AMS did not modify its bylaws, although it did pass a non-discriminatory motion which seems to have had limited impact.  The full text of the request is reproduced below.
5. In 1951, the AMS sold its library to the University of Georgia.  At the time, African Americans were not allowed to use the university library, and the AMS took no action to secure access for African American AMS members.  (The University of Georgia was segregated until 1961 when Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault enrolled.)
6. Some organizers of AMS meetings offered separate hotel accommodations to African American participants.  For example, this occurred at the 551st meeting at Duke University in 1958.
7. Some AMS meetings were held at segregated universities and colleges.  For example, a sectional meeting in 1954 was held at the University of Alabama which did not admit African Americans until 1956. 

Of course, the above list is not comprehensive, and almost certainly many discriminatory acts went undocumented.

Request from the Fisk University Mathematics Department published in Science Magazine

References

1. Donaldson JA. Black Americans in mathematics. A century of mathematics in America, Part III, 449–469, Hist. Math., 3, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1989
2. Goins E. A dream deferred: 50 years of blacks in mathematics (January 31, 2019), MAA Invited Address at the 2019 JMM. Accessed July 17, 2019.
3. Kass JK.  James L. Solomon and the end of segregation at the University of South Carolina, Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 67 (2020), no. 2, 192–200.
4. Kass JK.  "#MAADisrupted, David L. Hunter."  Blind Man with a Math Degree (blog).  June 7, 2020. (Accessed June 9, 2020).
5. Kass JK.  "#DisruptJMM, 1960 Edition."  Blind Man with a Math Degree (blog).  February 1, 2020. (Accessed June 9, 2020).
6. Lorch L, Boyd E, Brown W,  Holloway HM.  (1951, August 10) Discriminatory Practices [Comments and Communications], Science, Vol 114 (2954) (10 August, 1951), Issue p. 161.
7. Lorch L. The painful path towards inclusiveness, A century of mathematical meetings (Case BA, ed.), American Mathematical Society, 1996, pp. 83–102.
8. Nkwanta A, Barber JE. African-American mathematicians and the Mathematical Association of America (1995), MAA Centennial, Historical Articles. Accessed July 17, 2019.
9. Newell VK, Gipson JH, Rich LW, Stubblefield B. Black mathematicians and their works, Dorrance, 1980.  
10. Parshall KH. Mathematics and the politics of race: The case of William Claytor (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1933), Amer. Math. Monthly, 123(3):214–240, 2016.
11. Pearson M. Dr Shabazz Masjid Muhammad Dunbar Memoriam Video. June 12, 2015. (Accessed July 17, 2019).
12. Southeastern Section of the MAA. Three score and ten: a history of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America 1922–1992 (April 1995), MAA Centennial, Historical Articles. Accessed July 17, 2019.