BeBetterBelmont Letter of Demands
Note: Letter was originally published on July 13, 2020
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
Isaiah 61:1 (NASB Translation)
To Belmont University, its Leaders and Board of Trustees, and our fellow members of the Belmont University family,
2020 has taught the world many dramatic lessons and has been a time of revelation — a time when the truth comes to light in a new way. It has become clear that the United States’ prison industrial complex and criminal justice systems are quite unjust. Both of these systems allow business owners to profit from the incarceration of human beings while disproportionately imprisoning Black people. While we as a nation deeply regret the role that slavery has played in our history, certain corporations and their investors continue to take advantage of a loophole in the 13th Amendment which allows prisoners to be used as slave labor. As current students, alumni, Nashvillians, and stakeholders in Belmont University, we must take responsibility for the impact of our participation with the prison industrial complex,¹ and we must address the injustices that the prison system continues to place upon our brothers and sisters.
We believe the only responsible choice is to divest completely from the prison industrial complex. In support of this overarching purpose, we demand an open conversation surrounding the various aspects of Belmont’s relationship to CoreCivic. In addition, we call on Belmont to remove Damon Hininger from the Board of Trustees and refuse any present or future funding provided by CoreCivic.
Calling for the Removal of Belmont’s Ties with CoreCivic
The Board
Several people on Belmont’s Board of Trustees have ties with CoreCivic, but the most notable is Damon Hininger. Hininger became the CEO of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in 2009. Under his leadership, from 2010 to 2015, prisoners filed 82 percent of the more than 1,000 federal civil cases naming CCA as a defendant. Later in 2016, a class-action lawsuit was filed by shareholders against CCA and four executives, including Damon Hininger, for making “false and misleading statements about its operations related to safety, security and effectiveness and [for committing] securities fraud violations.” On the heels of this damage to its public image, CCA changed its name to CoreCivic in late 2016.
Endowments and Investments
CoreCivic’s reach extends well beyond Belmont University’s boardroom. CoreCivic founder Tom Beasley donated a $2 million endowment for Belmont’s Institute of Free Enterprise in 2018. Belmont also receives donations directly from CoreCivic and other entities such as Sodexo and Pinnacle Financial Partners, which are complicit with the prison industrial complex as vendors and lenders, according to reports from the American Friends Service Committee.
It is apparent that Belmont University is entangled with carceral institutions and the prison industrial complex,² but the full extent remains unclear. With regard to Belmont’s investment information, the university’s website states: “The Investment/Endowment Committee meeting does a quarterly negative screening to make intentional the investments in sustainable industries and funds.” However, this screening is not transparent to students, alumni, and community stakeholders. Given the prominence of CoreCivic’s position in Nashville and the pervasiveness of its relationship with Belmont, we need further transparency about Belmont University’s governance structures and investment patterns so that we may know the full extent of Belmont’s associations with the prison industrial complex.
We believe that the work of the prison industrial complex is antithetical to Belmont University’s mission and values. Any alignment with imprisonment is counteractive to achieving Belmont’s 2020 Vision and strategic priorities, specifically those of:
“(6) aligning Belmont’s vision and resources with the ever-changing needs of the people in our (Nashville) community and (7) exemplifying our Christian faith by responding to the imperative expressed in James 1:22, which states: ‘Do not merely listen to the word… Do what it says’.”
Isaiah 42: 6–7 says:
“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
We call on Belmont to lead the way as a Christian institution. We believe there is nothing Christ-like about the business of putting children and adults in cages, or paying humans eight-six cents per day for their work, or failing to comply with public safety standards in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic by disallowing medical treatment and creating dangerous living conditions.
The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County’s relationship with CoreCivic is coming to an end, and it is time for our university to follow suit. We realize that it will be a challenging transition to remove board members and fully divest from fiscal relationships with the prison industrial complex, but we are dedicated to the completion of this work.
Now is the time for Belmont University to demonstrate Christian leadership by choosing to extricate itself completely from any kind of relationship with the prison industrial complex.
DEMANDS
We structure our demands into five categories:
Define, Disclose, Divest, Develop, & Deepen.
DEFINE
Goal: to recognize and define anti-racism as a core part of Belmont’s values and mission.
#. Belmont should publicly acknowledge a mission for anti-racist work/policy institutes and commit to that mission as part of its 2020 Vision and strategic priorities with clear goals and a progress report.
#. Belmont University needs to publicly acknowledge and take responsibility for its past on-campus participation with racism and slavery, given that the Belmont Estate, donated by Adelica Acklen, was maintained by slaves and built using a fortune made by trading slaves. Specifically, Belmont needs to recognize those who have enjoyed the benefits of slavery and those who have been disadvantaged or harmed.
DISCLOSE
Goal: to foster transparency, better governance, and further accountability.
#. Belmont University should thoroughly define and publicly disclose its investment criteria and endowment terms, specifically its definition of “intentional” investments and “sustainable industry and funds” for its endowment investments, and publicly disclose all direct and indirect holdings, including personal financial holdings of the executive leadership and Board of Trustees, related to for-profit prison groups and companies operating within the prison industrial complex. The executive leadership
and Board of Trustees should disclose these investments and related transactions as a conflict of interest.
#. Belmont University should thoroughly define and disclose the recruitment processes and criteria for the Board of Trustees, faculty, and students. Belmont should also disclose any other relevant screening processes for outside partnerships including community organizations, vendors, and third-party contracting services.
#. Belmont University should publicly disclose the aggregate amount of grants and scholarship funding given to BIPOC students.
DIVEST
Goal: to eliminate any financial influence or entanglement between Belmont University and agents of the prison industrial complex.
#. Belmont University should ask Damon Hininger to resign from the Board of
Trustees. We also ask that Andrea Overby, Joe Russell, Marty Dickens, and John Ferguson step down from the Board of Trustees or publically sever ties with CoreCivic. No persons affiliated with or profiting from any prison system should be permitted on Belmont’s board or in any other leadership role within the University.
#. Belmont University must refuse any future donations or funding from CoreCivic or anyone in top leadership positions within CoreCivic (including personal donations from the CEO, anyone on the board of CoreCivic, or any shareholders of CoreCivic).
#. Belmont University should not fund any new programming, capital campaigns, or education initiatives with money given by for-profit prison groups or affiliated industries that profit off the prison industrial complex.
#. Belmont University should prohibit leadership from holding investments in
corporations that earn the majority of their revenue from the prison industrial complex. Belmont leadership should also abstain from holding Board positions or consulting with those corporations.
DEVELOP
Goal: to nurture students in order that they may become their best selves.
#. Belmont University should commit to increasing diversity within its faculty, senior management, and Board Members. Belmont should conduct a diversity audit and should allocate financial resources towards paying BIPOC consultants for assistance and guidance while making progress in the area of racial and religious diversity.
#. Belmont University should reform service programs so that they do not re-enact colonialist exchanges with communities of color. For example, Belmont should actively identify and root out any white savior tendencies that may manifest in service programs when there is a power imbalance between students and residents.
#. Belmont University should implement a campus-wide hate and bias incident- reporting system with safeguards for victims and transparent methods for addressing all reports effectively. Belmont should ensure that collected data on incidents is disseminated for analysis, policy improvements, and prevention.
#. Belmont University should create a plan in collaboration with faculty and
departments to create courses, workshops, and curricula focused on restorative justice; social justice and reform; racial justice; and race, ethnic, and gender studies for the 2021 academic year. This plan should include a significant increase in investment in order to fund this type of curriculum, as well as the hiring of additional faculty talent to help develop such programming.³
DEEPEN
Goal: to deepen community relationships and secure the rich legacy of the University
#. Belmont University should create a student, alumni, and community oversight board to hold Belmont University accountable for ongoing transparency and alignment of its investments, diversity initiatives, strategic plan, and values.
#. Belmont University should develop a plan to make reparations by 2023 for its connection to slavery and a for-profit prison. Belmont should cooperate with local and regional organizations whose work involves reparations and restorative justice. Belmont’s plan for reparations should also be approved by a group of BIPOC students.⁴
#. Belmont University should reinvest in the community by undergoing new searches and screenings to identify local groups who work to ameliorate the far-reaching and insidious consequences of the prison industrial complex.⁵ Belmont should also establish relationships with local BIPOC-owned organizations, especially historically black colleges and universities, to support and deepen our mutual commitment to pursuing and preserving diversity in education.
In closing, we ask for Dr. Fisher and the Board of Trustees to uphold Belmont’s mission statement and its core values: Integrity, Inquiry, Collaboration, Service, and Humility. We are prepared to walk with Belmont University’s leadership during this necessary transition, so that Belmont may take an active stance against white supremacy. In this journey, we need further transparency and clarity from Belmont’s leadership to
better understand the governance structure and investment patterns at the University.
We are prepared and grateful to undergo a community-wide discussion modeled after the University’s overarching commitment to “pursue transparency, open conversations and positive relationships as tools for creating a renewed sense of mutual respect and
collaboration” to this end of creating a commitment and path towards anti-racism (Vision 2020, Strategic Priority #2).
We join Belmont in its stated desire to “engage in ongoing evaluation of our learning processes and adapt to changing environments” (Vision2020, Strategic Priority #4), and we share the goal of “aligning Belmont’s vision and resources with the ever-changing needs of the people in our community” (Vision2020, Strategic Priority #6). We are thankful to be members of a community that values deliberation, reflection, and repentance.
We are humbly committed to supporting Belmont University in its mission to help young lives learn, grow, and succeed within the framework of a holistic, ethical, and faith-informed education. We believe that by working together towards these anti-racism goals, we can welcome an even more hopeful future where Belmont is able to attract a more diverse student body that will become our world’s future leaders and peacemakers.
[1]The Harvard-to-Prison Pipeline Report defines the prison industrial complex as “the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to what are, in actuality, economic, social, and political ‘problems’.”
[2] Examples of other associated donors from 2019 President’s Report: Acadia; Community Health Systems; Goldman Sachs; Caterpillar; Pinnacle Financial Partners
[3] We would like to see at least a 30% increase in funding towards such curriculum and programming but defer this ask to the departments responsible for creating the curriculum to decide on their plan with the administration.
[4] Precedence for this has been set by Georgetown University which in 2019 committed to raising around $400,000 a year to create a fund for reparations to the descendants of 272 slaves sold by the college in the pre-Civil War era.
[5] Local groups such as: Gideon’s Army, No Exceptions Prison Collective, Southerners on New Ground, and The People’s Budget Coalition. Note, it is also important to pay these groups for their work.
