A few weeks ago, my mother read me another headline about another university, or another high school, or another government building, or another public park that either changed its name or removed an art piece as an acknowledgement of how its name or how that art piece honored white supremacy. While I can’t remember how she set it up, the punchline was “everybody but Hofstra.” And naturally, I laughed. 

Yeah, everybody but Hofstra.

Last week, the image of a partially dug out Thomas Jefferson sculpture arrived in my inbox and flooded my social media feeds. For a minute there, I was worried the punchline that never got old would no longer be evergreen, but then another image arrived in my inbox: a hole near Emily Lowe.

Thank God.

I don’t know what I’d do, or frankly, who I would be, if the only dinner party entertainment I could provide was the story of how my student organizing collective galvanized our entire undergraduate campus and how, as a direct result of the dialogue we commanded, our university unanimously decided to remove a sculpture of a slave-holder and rapist from our campus. I mean, could you imagine my embarrassment? 

Thankfully, I don’t have to wonder what I’d do or who I would be. My bit about my parents cutting years off of their lives to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send me to Hofstra University – only to be rewarded with matching Hofstra Dad and Hofstra Mom crewnecks and sleepless nights worrying that their eldest daughter would be lynched by white supremacist groups validated by Hofstra’s decision not to remove the sculpture – will live to see another day.

When the Editorial Board from The Hofstra Chronicle asked if I would pen an editorial offering what has been going through my mind since the university announced its intention to relocate the Thomas Jefferson sculpture, I was caught off guard. 

I didn’t think my opinion on the matter held any weight within the Hofstra community any longer, hence why the sculpture is only being relocated in the first place and why there’s been little movement on Jefferson Has Gotta Go’s demand for mandatory anti-racist training for staff, faculty and administrators and an online bias reporting system.

But my mother quickly reminded me that it does matter what I have to say. When I shared the news with her, she offered a congratulations to me as well as my friends, because the sculpture is now that much closer to the curb. With the talented student organizers on that campus that succeed me, I’m sure students will easily find a way to finally put that sculpture in the dumpster where it deserves to be after all these years.

The work is not done, and I ache for that reason, but the work is further along, and for that reason congratulations to myself and my friends are definitely in order.

But, when I am asked what I think about the relocation of the sculpture of Thomas Jefferson, particularly in light of the concerns raised by the students whose chosen discipline will require them to continue interacting with it every single day, I think it’s sad. I think it’s a failure to read this political moment correctly, and frankly, empathetically. I think it’s a conscious effort to tell the Hofstra community that the administration is changing everything by changing absolutely nothing – by declining the invitation to rise to the occasion. I think it’s a reminder that educational justice will ultimately require that we stop appealing to the moral sense of those depriving us of it. I think it means that unless we radically alter how we engage universities, we will continue to run into the problem of our demands being co-opted and made politically expedient, just as the demand that the sculpture of Thomas Jefferson be removed has been. I think it means that rather than being one of the last, I am now nowhere near the last student who is going to have to take it upon themselves to use what we’re told are the most transformative years of our lives to cope with the abuse and isolation that comes with demanding justice – even though our demands will fall on stubborn ears and we will be brought to tears when we’re driven mad by the voyeurs who watch it all happen. And so, I’ve found it very difficult to accept even my mother’s congratulations.

In solidarity and with a heavy heart,

Ja’Loni A. Owens 

Former Lead Organizer of Jefferson Has Gotta Go!

(A hole dug near Emily Lowe Hall around the same size as the base of the Jefferson statue was discovered on June 21. Photograph courtesy of Elliot Colloton.)