CSTP Stands in Solidarity With All Who Demand Justice and Accountability

Faculty, staff and students at the Center for the Study of Tobacco Products (CSTP) stand in solidarity with all people and organizations working to end systemic racism and oppression and to dismantle white supremacy. As a unit of an academic institution and a scientific research body, we recognize that systemic oppression has been and continues to be an unfortunate part of our world. The academic enterprise accommodates it subtly and not-so-subtly, and sometimes rewards it overtly. The process of conducting science also accommodates and rewards systemic oppression through many means, including the kinds of questions that are posed, the ways that people are differentially empowered and through barriers to entry that start at birth. As the United States has been rocked once again by appalling violence against African American/black people, we are compelled to interrogate our work to determine how we are advancing a vision of a just and equitable world for all. 

Over the coming weeks, CSTP faculty, staff and students will identify how our research and training can address social justice issues directly. We will change our mission statement and our activities to include social justice. To hold ourselves accountable, we will report our updated mission statement and related activities to our external advisory board and to our federal partners in our annual meeting on August 18-19, 2020. We will appoint a contact person who is tasked with keeping our work in this area moving forward. 

From this point onward, CSTP will be intentional in operationalizing its mission in a manner that challenges the effects and intents of centuries of race, class and gender oppression.