An uptick in anti-Black racist remarks and graffiti at CSUMB sparks calls for reform.

The mood was a joyous one at the Black/African Heritage affinity graduation ceremony at CSU Monterey Bay on Tuesday, May 12, as undergraduates and graduate students celebrated their academic successes. Students smiled broadly as they walked across the stage to receive special black kente stoles, each displaying the words “All Black Grads Matter.”

There was jubilance that night but there were moments of sadness, with callbacks to dark moments including anti-Black slurs shouted at students gathered at the Helen Rucker Center for Black Excellence and the N-word sprayed in different areas of campus – in one case etched into a student’s dorm room door, reading “Stupid [N-word] bitch.”

“Incidents of anti-Black racism started to peak this semester. It got ugly,” says Kamilah Majied, a professor in the Department of Social Work, adding it’s been happening for a while.

Frustrations over the increase in anti-Black racist incidents and a feeling that the administration wasn’t doing enough to combat them led to a protest on campus on April 23. Longtime leaders of Monterey Peninsula’s Black community spoke, including Mel Mason, cofounder of the Village Project and a former adviser to the CSUMB Black Student Union.

“What’s happening at CSUMB is atrocious, despicable and those are words that don’t adequately describe the depth of what’s happening out there,” Mason says.

Some protest signs included the message “Fix the Cameras,” referring to the fact that security cameras in dorm hallways weren’t operational. A university spokesperson says cameras are working but have poor resolution and will be upgraded this summer. Investigations by CSUMB Police into three instances of anti-Black graffiti during the 2025-2026 academic year are ongoing.

More important to Black students and faculty is what they contend was a weak response by the administration. They asked for a definitive statement decrying racism, but only one department, the Department of Social Work, made a statement, says social work graduate student Loyce Bryant.

A CSUMB spokesperson says in a written statement that a number of actions have been planned or are ongoing, including incorporating an existing microaggression training into new student orientations and the formation of advisory councils to provide guidance when incidents occur, among others.

The university also hosted a campus-wide conversation on the impact of hurtful language, which attracted a standing-room-only audience of over 120 people where Majied, one of the organizers, spoke about the nature and scope of anti-Black racism. The response to the seminar included calls from students and faculty for more workshops and dialogue in the future.

Majied is planning initiatives for the 2026-2027 school year, but along with Bryant and Mason, they say more action is needed by the administration, like clear consequences for racist acts and more response from CSUMB’s Title IX office.

During the affinity graduation ceremony, graduating undergrad student Amaya Watson shared some encouragement with her classmates.

“They sure did try us this year, didn’t they?” she said. “We have won. We have won by getting our degrees.”