While Meg took Sarah in to give blood for a DNA analysis, I went to campus. It was the day of the midterm exam, and though I wasn’t teaching, I still had to be there to proctor the test and deal with whatever panic question six might cause. The campus was buzzing with news that some students were occupying the president’s office. I read about it in the student rag while sitting in my office, regarded photos of the protesters sitting on the floor, staring at their phones and sipping from Starbucks cups. The students were apparently demanding many resignations because the president and his administration were insensitive to the needs of students of color. It sounded like my college days twenty-five years earlier, when we were asking for essentially the same things. I was sadly as apolitical then as I was at this moment. I dealt with fossils. I crawled through caves and measured the bones of birds long dead. The students had passed around a petition stating that the administration did not understand how profoundly they had been affected by the murder of a black teenager by police in Peoria, Illinois. The petition claimed that the students should not have to take exams, they were so distraught. A couple of black students came to my office, seeking me out as a black faculty member. I had never met either of them, a handsome man and a handsome woman, bright eyed and young, searching for intensity.

“Professor Wells?”

“Yes, I’m Wells.”

“I’m Mya Chambers, and this is Daniel Johnson. I’m an English major,” she said.

“History,” Daniel said.

“We were wondering if you would join us, talk to us at a meeting tonight,” Mya said.

“Who is ‘us’?”

“The Students of Color Coalition,” Daniel said. “We’re protesting the lack of black faculty on campus.”

“What do you want from me?”

“We want you to tell us how the university has systematically excluded people of color from becoming faculty.” Mya looked at Daniel for approval.

Daniel nodded.

“So, it appears you already know what you want me to say,” I said. This surprised them and, to tell the truth, me too. My tone suggested no patience at all. “You’d like me to say that this university has tried to keep black paleontologists from serving as professors here. Understand me—I know racism is real. I’ve been arrested a couple of times in Arizona for simply driving while black. I’ve been shot at by some white supremacists while on a dig and worried that the last words I might hear in life would be ‘I got me one.’ But I haven’t personally experienced it here, though I’m certain there’s some of it.”

They stared at me as if I were on fire.

“For all I know I may not have gotten several grants because of racist panelists. I just don’t know. I crawl into caves and find fossils and then identify them. I am a scientist. I should probably be more political in my thinking and dealings with the school. But I’m not.”