Shardé M. Davis, a communications professor at the University of Connecticut, is the co-founder of the Twitter hashtag #BlackintheIvory. Along with Joy Melody Woods, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, Davis sparked a public conversation about racism in academia when she tweeted out some of her own experiences as a Black scholar.
“We’ve never been able to share our stories,” Davis told NEXT. “The ivory tower is really shrouded.”
Since her initial tweets earlier this month, the hashtag has amplified the voices of Black scholars at universities across the country who have dealt with racism on the job and from white colleagues. Davis talked to NEXT about the changes she hopes #BlackintheIvory will spur.
