For the students in TCU’s “The Genius of Hip-Hop” class, a recent conversation with a hip-hop duo from the Northeast was a time to talk about life, politics and the struggle to get by.
While national politics and rollbacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts weren’t at the forefront of the event, it was part of the background.
Hip-hop artists Amari Mar and Jadin Shropshire talked about being real, their musical influences and how they compose their music.
“It’s really a feeling. I might find a sample,” said Shropshire, who lives in upstate New York and grew up in Baltimore. “I hear something, and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s fire.’ Take that piece. Maybe do what I do with it, add my drums.”
About 30 students listened to the duo in a TCU debate room. This semester, the class has been touching on art and politics at a politically charged time around diversity efforts, especially at university campuses, including TCU.
TCU rollback on DEI efforts
This semester TCU rolled back its public DEI efforts following a Trump executive order targeting diversity programs on college campuses. The old webpage for the Diversity & Inclusion office now goes to the TCU Center for Connection Culture. The university removed mentions of its DEI efforts from prominent parts on the university’s About page, where there is still a mention of the university’s Race & Reconciliation Initiative, which the university launched in 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
Marcellis Perkins, a strategy and innovation fellow in the office of the chancellor and president, does not think the university has lost momentum in its diversity efforts. Perkins led a conversation with students during the hip-hop event.
“TCU is trying its absolute best to stay in front of what’s going on and to protect as many people as possible,” said Perkins, who recently received a doctorate in higher education administration from TCU. “There are still people doing the work. It just will constantly look different. I think that’s just a reflection of the history of the work. It constantly takes new shape and form in response to something that’s restricting it.”
‘Leftism and DEI’ at TCU
The Tarrant County GOP has recently put a spotlight on “leftism and DEI” at TCU, with a March email calling out the university for having a “DEI problem” and saying the university’s DEI officers have veto power over potential hires.
“We want a school that reflects and honors the traditional Christian background,” said Bo French, chair of the Tarrant County GOP, in a March 29 Tarrant GOP roundup email. “DEI is overtly racist and goes against everything the university used to stand for. TCU has drifted far off of that path, but we have some ideas on how we could help.”
French and TCU officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Frederick Gooding, an associate professor at TCU who teaches “The Genius of Hip-Hop” class, doesn’t mince words in terms of TCU’s rollback of DEI efforts.
“We have an opportunity to demonstrate what it is that we stand for versus what it is that we cower to,” said Gooding, who said he has not been privy to any community-wide dialogue on TCU’s DEI rollback. “The idea that Tuesday, you have a website up and Wednesday it’s gone without a conversation, I think this is a missed opportunity to talk about, here’s why we’re doing it.”
TCU students in “The Genius of Hip-Hop” say they think diversity efforts at their university are important. (Shomial Ahmad | Fort Worth Report) For many of the TCU students in the hip-hop class, diversity efforts at their university are important and essential.
“(Gooding) is really teaching us how we as a country got to this point today,” said Libby Dolan, a student majoring in nursing. “He discusses the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of music, but also incorporates that into our lives as a whole and our respective fields of study (once) we graduate.”
For Tyla Robinson, the class is a chance to feel affirmed about her own personal history as a Black woman. The course addresses the Black perspective in a deep way, she said.
“One thing that really drew me in once I was here (at TCU) was the Race & Reconciliation Initiative and seeing my own professors be so infused in that,” said Robinson, a student in strategic communications and sports broadcasting.
The “Hip-Hop Convo” at TCU was just another way for the students to engage in the Black experience in ways that go beyond the political buzzwords of DEI and race.
Discussing the Black experience
Mar and Shropshire, the hip-hop performers, talked about their musical influences — from A Tribe Called Quest to Sam Cooke to listening to Public Enemy on a cassette player. They talked about how hip-hop connects different generations, how to make money from their music and what makes their music have resonance.
“I have to be true to myself, like I can’t go against my nature,” said Mar, who tries to avoid the same uniform sound. “The elements of being a true hip-hop artist is being original.”
For Corinna Bou, a Latina TCU sociology student, part of being authentic is doing what you say.
“We talk a lot about actions and words and which one is more believable. And how do you make a difference?” said Bou. “And how are artists in hip-hop making a difference through their music, especially when they’re not always the face of hip-hop?”
Bou would like TCU to “do better” around its diversity effort. But she knows that the university is in a tough spot.
Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus. Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org.
The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Science Center.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
