To the Editors:

The Board of the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Trans* People would like to express our support for the following demands made by the student coalition at the Trustee Forum on Oct. 10:

1. Increased transparency of the College’s administrative decision making and a transformation of the process of decision making to include the voices and active participation of marginalized students

2. Divestment from six companies profiting from the ongoing violations of international law and human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and complicit in Israel’s ongoing apartheid policies

3. The active admission and support of undocumented students at Oberlin College and Conservatory

The ELC also supports the following components of the additional student demands delivered at the Trustee Forum:

1. An Asian-American Studies program at Oberlin College with three tenure-track professorships

2. The banning of harmful environmental practices by Oberlin College with the understanding that such practices disproportionately affect low-income communities, communities of color and Appalachian communities, and a plan to ensure that clean energy alternatives center racial justice and do not contribute to environmental degradation in the Oberlin community and the region more broadly

Oberlin College has a responsibility to live up to the ideals of social justice and progressivism we claim to hold as an institution. The demands made by student leaders and activists call on the Board of Trustees and College administration to respect the voices and knowledge of marginalized students and to stand behind the student body in determining the future of the College. We support not only the demands themselves, but also the passion, anger and urgency with which they were delivered to the Board of Trustees. The attempt to silence the voices of student leaders and activists with rhetoric of respectability and civility undermines student power and agency, and further upholds the power structure at Oberlin College that serves to marginalize people of color, low income, first generation, immigrant, multinational, (dis) abled, queer and trans* students.

The ELC demands concrete results from the Trustees and administration with regard to the student demands, as well as transparency about the steps being taken to achieve these results.