Last Updated on September 18, 2021
A Virginia Tech professor apologized to students of color for being a white, cisgender female. Dr. Crystal Duncan Lane issued the apology in a syllabus for her class. Lane is an instructor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Human Development and Family Science, according to Campus Reform.
Lane apologized to her students of color for being white and encouraged white students to “join” her “on this journey” of confronting inherent biases. The apology was found in the ““Who I Am” section in her Human Development 1134 syllabus. “I am a Caucasian cisgender female and first-generation college student from Appalachia who is of Scottish, British, and Norwegian heritage. I am married to a cisgender male, and we are middle class. While I did not ‘ask’ for the many privileges in my life: I have benefitted from them and will continue to benefit from them whether I like it or not,” reads the document.
“This is injustice. I am and will continue to work on a daily basis to be antiracist and confront the innate racism within myself that is the reality and history of white people,” Duncan Lane continued. (READ MORE: Virginia Tech Diversity Director Gets SIX MONTHS Jail for 11 Counts of Child Pornography)
Virginia Tech instructor apologizes to students of color for being white https://t.co/wA4khl0UeL pic.twitter.com/5wzL7oLZ8W
— New York Post (@nypost) September 17, 2021
“I want to be better: Every day. I will transform: Every day. This work terrifies me: Every day. I invite my white students to join me on this journey. And to my students of color: I apologize for the inexcusable horrors within our shared history.”
“It hurts that someone says I was born with “innate racism” because of my skin color,” a student told Campus Reform. “It makes me feel like I should hide and worry about everything I say.”
