While it is commendable (and perhaps overdue) that the Provost’s office is willing to fund a cluster hire around racism and social inequality, it is, frankly, irresponsible and undermining to demand that full-blown, interdisciplinary proposals, endorsed by college/campus leadership, be completed within only seven days. Such a short timeframe, unreasonable even under normal circumstances, is necessarily disadvantageous to those individuals who are already working beyond capacity due to the pandemic (many of whom belong, ironically, to groups affected by existing structures of inequality), and to dangle such a funding opportunity in a time of overall austerity without providing the appropriate time to respond to it is shortsighted, self-defeating, and simply unfair to those individuals unable to drop everything else they are doing to pull together an appropriate response to such an exciting opportunity. Please allow units time to confer and organize around thoughtful proposals – at least 3 weeks.