Earlham students are protesting how Earlham falls short in supporting students of color and other minority students, including women, LGBTQ students, and international students. They have identified longstanding and institutional lack of racial equity at Earlham and offered a list of requirements to address these.  Many of these problems are a result of Earlham administration removing support structures which past generations fought to put in place. (Click here for more background.)

Earlham's administration has not provided any public response — instead they are threatening disciplinary actions against three student activists. Embarrassingly, its lack of response has made its way to front pages of the local newspaper.

Students — and Earlham — need you to lend your voice to urge Earlham to address these structural issues directly and meaningfully in order to create a safer, supportive community.

Therefore, this petition "urges the administration to consistently meet with students and others to engage and consider the list of requirements, and rapidly implement those policies which align with Earlham’s highest values — without punishing or singling out students involved in this advocacy movement."

FULL PETITION:

As alums we know what Earlham can offer at its best. We cherish ideas of equality and justice that Earlham College strives towards. This is shown in Earlham’s historic boldness: enrolling Japanese-American students to prevent internment during World War II, creating a leading off campus studies program that has infused the culture of the college, and, out of service to climate change, becoming one of the first colleges to switch from styrofoam “to-go” containers to reusable containers in its cafeteria — to name just a few.

What we hear of the current Earlham administration’s choices trouble us:

• a reduction of student-run spaces: moving the Womyn’s Center off-campus (currently without a home) and curtailing Miller Farm and Rose City Coffee shop.
• an elimination of college readiness programs that provide academic support to students who need an extra hand, like the Summer Writing Intensive (SWI).
• a troubling lack of counseling services, with only one full-time counselor for all students and a myriad of part-time counselors, none of whom are people of color; and
• firing support staff who were well-liked, and known on campus for going beyond their official positions to support marginalized students and filling in where counselors and support structures fell short (Trayce Peterson, Rich Dornberger and Stacy Kawamura).

These moves run counter to the Quaker-values that have infused our Earlham experiences. This devastation of academic support, counseling, student agency, and trusted support staff represents an erosion of the hard-fought policies earlier generations put in place to address issues of inequality. Losing them diminishes the Earlham experience, especially for historically marginalized communities who suffer heavily with these changes.

Earlham is at its best when it is challenged to live up to its high values — and that means wrestling with the feedback the students are offering from their experiences. We are at a critical juncture in our country’s history, a time when the Black Lives Matter movement is forcing the issue of racism to the surface. This is a moment to deepen community, stand up against injustice, and confront the fierce urgency of now.

We therefore urge the administration to consistently meet with students and others to engage and consider the list of requirements, and rapidly implement those policies which align with Earlham’s highest values — without punishing or singling out students involved in this advocacy movement.

Because we care about Earlham, we are compelled to lend our support to these students and others who are trying to put into action the values and principles that make Earlham the special place that it is — and the fair, just, and equitable place that it can become.