Brandeis has promoted itself as an institution “founded on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion” and writes on its DEI History site that its “commitment to these founding values has never faltered, though it’s been tested over the University’s history.” Two examples of these tests are the 1969 Ford and Sydeman Hall Occupation and the 2015 sit-in under the same name, in which Brandeis Administration was challenged to create greater diversity on campus and to live up to the reputation that the university has given itself. 

In response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, as well as the ongoing protests at San Francisco State and an alleged attack on a Black student in the Transitional Year Program, an organization at the time named the Brandeis Afro-American Society began an 11-day long occupation of Ford and Sydeman Halls. On January 8th, 1969, around 70 students entered Ford and Sydeman Halls, seized the phones and cleared classrooms of students and faculty according to the Library Archive. The occupation was partnered with ten demands the students required in order to expand minority representation on the Brandeis campus prior to ending their occupation of the building. Two students, Ricardo Millet, GRAD ’68 and Roy DeBerry ’70, the President of the Brandeis Afro-American Society, presented their demands to the university faculty and administration. The full statement of the demands reads:

“My name is Roy DeBerry from the Brandeis Afro-American Organization, and first of all I want to say that the black students and also the group here is in sympathy with the striking students at San Francisco State and we also support the Timilty coalition in Boston. Let me add that all students, faculty and staff and administrators involved in the action that we have taken should get complete amnesty. The essentials of all the demands is that they must be controlled by black people and in the interests of the black community at Brandeis. Demands are non-negotiable and must be answered in black and white and wuth the appropriate signatories. The demands are as follows:

1. An African Studies Department with the power to hire and fire. This means that the committee must have an independent budget of its own.
2. Year-round recruitment of black students by black students and headed by a black director. The number of students in the TYP program should be doubled next year and the administration should support and actively campaign for the necessary funds. 
3. There must be black directors for the Upward Bound and TYP Program
4. Immediate action on the part of the administration to have black professors added to the various departments.
5. The establishment of an Afro-American center designed by black students
6. Written clarification of the position of the TYP students within the University structure encompassing the areas of financial aid, admission to Brandeis, criteria for satisfactory work.
7. Expulsion of a white student who shot a black student before the Christmas holiday.
8. The brochure (for black student recruitment) must be accepted in its present form or only with changes accepted by black students. The brochure must be published immediately.
9. Intensify the recruitment of African students in the Wien program
10. Ten Martin Luther King automatic full scholarships for on and off campus black students. This should include transportation from the TYP Program on up to graduation from the University. 

After the demands were shared with the university, faculty spoke out condemning the actions of the students with a vote to condemn of 153 to 18.  The occupation continued into the following day, in which other students began similar demonstrations including a sit-in at Bernstein-Marcus and with students effectively renaming the occupied structures “Malcolm X University.” Within the next five days, some students began a hunger strike in support of the Black students’ occupation. 

On the 11th day of the occupation, over 60 students exited the building and were granted amnesty for their actions. A few individuals who stuck around after this formal conclusion of the occupation were not given such amnesty. 

While many of the occupation’s demands were not met by the university administration, a few changes were made to promote diversity and Black student inclusion at Brandeis. Three months after the occupation, the Department of African and African American Studies was created alongside the funding of 10 MLK Scholarships. 

Forty-six years later, Brandeis students took up a similar fight in the #FordHall2015 sit-in at the Bernstein-Marcus building. On November 19, 2015 around 100 students named Concerned Students 2015 began participating in the 13-day long sit-in outside Interim President Lisa Lynch’s office. This time, students had a list of 13 demands that were emailed directly to the Interim President from the email FordHall2015@gmail.com. 

An excerpt from the email explains the reasoning behind the students’ actions:

“As a University we have failed. We have failed our Black students. We have failed our Black professors. We have failed our Black staff members. We have failed our Black community. We, as a university, must not continue to claim ignorance of said failures. Black students across the nation are standing up against racial injustice on their campuses. We, as concerned students, need our university to stand with us and to work with us on addressing issues of injustice, as they unfold on our own campus. The only way for this institution to move forward is to address these failures directly. This is what we, as concerned student leaders of Brandeis University, have done.”

On November 30th, members of #FordHall2015 and Brandeis Administration came to an agreement that was planned to be announced on Unity Day, December 1. Brandeis Administration, according to the Ford Hall 2015 website, did not honor their agreement to announce that all demands would be met on December 1 at 12:30 p.m. Instead, members of the administration arrived two hours late but explained an action plan that was expected to meet all 13 of #FordHall2015’s demands. 

The 2015 demands are as follows:

1. Increase the percentage of full-time Black faculty and staff to 10% across ALL departments and schools, while prioritizing the following:
   a. Anthropology, Heller, History, HSSP, Fine Arts, IBS, NEJS, Sciences, Sociology, and Theatre.
2. Increase the number of tenure tracks for Black faculty across ALL departments and schools.
3. Implement educational pedagogies and curriculums that increase racial awareness and inclusion within ALL departments and schools.
4. Mandate yearly diversity and inclusion workshops for all faculty and staff with optional workshops being offered consistently throughout the academic year.
5. Employ additional clinical staff of color within the Psychological Counseling Center in order to provide culturally relevant support to students of all backgrounds.
6. Increase funding of Black student organizations and programs.
7. Appoint a Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion.
8. Increase the admittance of Black students via the general admission process to 15% within both undergraduate and graduate schools.
9. Establish an Office of Ombuds within Academic Services.
   a. Ombuds is an intermediary administrative body appointed to receive and investigate complaints made by students against abuses or capricious acts of university officials, faculty, and staff.
10. Increase minimum wage for all hourly paid university employees by 15%.
11. Increase the number of professional development workshops specifically tailored for Black students.
12. Issue a public apology to Khadijah Lynch from Senior Vice President Andrew Flagel.
13. Brandeis’ current Interim President and the Brandeis Board of Trustees will fulfill these demands:
    a. Interim President Lisa Lynch will call an emergency meeting with the Brandeis Board of Trustees and will hold this meeting in the next 24 hours.
    b. The Board of Trustees will meet all of these demands and write these demands into the contract of the new Brandeis president-elect for the president-elect to sign.

All demands are to be met by the start of the Fall 2016 academic semester.

Fact-checking if these demands have actually attempted to be met is difficult due to Brandeis’ lack of transparency regarding fulfilling DEI responses. It is clear though that many of these demands, as well as those of the 1969 Ford Hall occupation, have not been met. Only 3% of Brandeis’ full-time faculty are Black, with 65% white, 10% Asian, 6% International, 5% Hispanic and 11% unspecified, according to the university’s faculty fast facts site. There is no clear information on the diversity statistics of tenured and tenure-track faculty available on Brandeis’ website, which is necessary for accurately assessing the validity of the Administration’s response in 2015. 

Anti-Racism plans have been put in place since the 2015 occupation, but have yet to be truly updated or discussed since their writings. These plans have not been updated since 2021, and no concrete evidence of their implementation or impact has been shared with the university community. Since 2021, correspondences on DEI with Brandeis students have been limited to highlighting heritage months and historical figures. 

With Brandeis’ supposed founding based on diversity, equity and inclusion and its history of student backlash towards the failures of the administration, we mustn’t forget the promises that have been made and perhaps have not been followed through with.