Judson Jefferies is a professor in African American and African Studies at Ohio State. Credit: Courtesy of Judson Jefferies
As protests for racial justice consumed the nation in late May 2020, Judson Jeffries knew he had to mobilize his students in the classroom.
Jeffries, a professor in African American and African studies, said the events of the past year have shaped and influenced his courses — to where he has hammered home the civic duty of his students to address the problems Black Americans face in policing.
“I’m talking to my students about what this is, what you can do to hold people accountable who are uniquely positioned to address this problem, this is what you can do to pressure them to address the problem,” Jeffries said.
According to Ohio State’s Human Resources website, Ohio State’s faculty and staff are 10.4 percent Black and 72.9 percent white, as of Sept. 30, 2019 — the most recent data available at the time of publication.
The university employed 3,726 Black faculty and staff — with 121 on the tenure track, 88 clinical faculty, one research faculty and 134 associated faculty.
Despite making up 21 percent of the population of the 100 largest cities in America, Black Americans made up 38 percent of people killed by the police departments of those cities between January 2013 and December 2020, according to mappingpoliceviolence.org, a nonprofit website that tracks police violence across the country.
Jeffries said he teaches his students that the disproportionate killing of Black people at the hands of police is a part of systemic racism, and one of the best ways to uproot it is to vote.
By voting for elected officials, such as defense and prosecuting attorneys,, Jeffries said students will be able to gradually root out systemic racism.
“For instance, DAs and prosecutors who often times are reluctant to bring charges against police officers, what you can do is [say], ‘Hey listen, you can do a better job of vetting district attorneys and prosecutors and making sure that when they are running, you express to them what you expect to see from them in the event cases like these arise,’” Jeffries said.
Jeffries also said he tells his students that there is a financial incentive for them to vote this way, with police misconduct settlements coming out of public tax money.
“If they realize they’re the ones footing the bill for police officers to misbehave, there’d be public outrage. For my students — many of whom, especially those who want to be lawyers — I’m encouraging them to set their sights on becoming a prosecutor or a district attorney,” Jeffries said. “I think you could do a lot of good for the community, talking about the kind of career options they might not have considered. If you want to improve the human race, these are the kinds of posts you should keep an eye on.”
However, when thinking of the nation as a whole, Jeffries has also looked at race at Ohio State and observed there are not as many Black professors in influential and powerful roles as he feels they should be.
“Ohio State University is no better or worse than any other predominantly white institution. I mean as a person of color, there’s a certain amount of foolishness that you experience,” Jeffries said. “There’s a certain amount of chicanery that you encounter, and that’s something that you have to deal with just like you would in the outside world.”
Ohio State had 41,634 white undergraduate students enrolled across all campuses, 64.7 percent of all students, according to the 2021 spring 15th day enrollment report. On the Columbus campus, there were 37,418 white students.
Across all campuses, there were 4,697 Black students, with 4,103 on the Columbus campus, according to the spring 15th day enrollment report. — just under 7 percent of the total student population.
“For crying out loud, this is a land-grant institution, which has a different mission from the typical college or university,” Jeffries said. “Land-grant universities should reflect the racial composition of the community and indeed the city in which the university is located. That’s not the case here at the Ohio State University.”
Jeffries’ sentiments on the importance of diversity are shared by University President Kristina M. Johnson.
In a September interview with The Lantern, Johnson said she thinks it would be great for the faculty to accurately represent the demographics of the state and of students at the university.
“We need to get to where our faculty, where people can see someone that looks like them, they know they can be it,” Johnson said. “That’s an area where we are going to work on an initiative to take action on.”
Since then, Johnson announced in her Feb. 18 State of the University address that the university would hire 150 new faculty members within its new Race, Inclusion and Society Equity Initiative. At least 50 of them will be scientists, artists and scholars dedicated to addressing social equity and racial disparities in education and public safety, health care, leadership fields, and resources and the environment.
Jeffries said he believes increasing the numbers of Black professors will benefit the community.
He said the current small number of faculty have limited time to get out into the community and conduct impactful research — such as his current work on what needs to be done to stop excessive and lethal use of police force against Black people — due to how busy they are.
Jeffries said Black faculty typically find themselves serving on multiple committees, speaking to multiple student organizations and groups on issues of diversity and advising a lot of students.
“Because we find ourselves in that position, we are often stretched too thin,” Jeffries said. “Hence, the importance of increasing our numbers.”
Jeffries said he has taught at institutions such as Harvard University and Virginia Tech University, but the students at those schools “pale in comparison” to the ones he has taught in his 14 years at Ohio State. It is his goal to be a great professor, one who explains things well and inspires people to action.
“Being a professor is not a job for me, it’s a calling for me,” Jeffries said. “This is a calling and I see my responsibility as one that involves molding young minds, teaching them how to think so they can navigate the world.”
View more stories from The Lantern’s Black Voices project here.
