Student Strike Demands, October 30, 2020

Document Guide
ACTION STEPS FOR STUDENTS:

1

ACTION STEPS FOR FACULTY:
1
Letter to President Raymond and Dean Bylander
DEMANDS
5
IN CONCLUSION

3

9

RELEVANT DOCUMENTS

9

ACTION STEPS FOR STUDENTS:
Commit to this strike and disruption. We need all students on board-- it cannot just be
BIPOC or FGLI students. Strike means no more business as usual. Use this template to
email your professors and bosses.
Keep this strike alive on social media, email listservs, and in all your networks. Tag
Haverford, tag Wendy, tag everyone.
Distribute funds to @bicomutualaid to ensure those striking have financial support in this
strike.
To alleviate burden on Coop workers and DC workers, please contribute to food
alternatives and support the Nest. You can donate groceries here.

ACTION STEPS FOR FACULTY:
Commit to this strike and disruption by cancelling classes and coursework. Do not
penalize students for missing coursework or pressure them to attend class.
Keep this strike alive on social media, email listservs, and in all your networks. Tag
Haverford, tag Wendy, tag everyone.
Distribute funds to @bicomutualaid to ensure those striking have financial support in this
strike.
To alleviate burden on Coop workers and DC workers, please contribute to food
alternatives and support the Nest. You can donate groceries here.

Dear President Raymond and Dean Bylander,
We would like to start with an acknowledgement that the campus of Haverford College occupies
land that was cultivated by Lenni Lenape people for over 10,000 years. As students at Haverford College,
we inherit a legacy that includes the displacement of Lenni Lenape people in Oklahoma, Wisconsin,
Kansas, and Ontario. This involved the forcible removal that worked in concert with acts of
disenfranchisement and genocide that reduced the local population of Lenni Lenape from 20,000 to 4,000.

Let us clearly acknowledge the college’s contribution to these violent histories and acknowledge
our responsibility to build a fuller understanding of the implications of these histories. We must
recognize the ways in which our privileges have come at the cost of the oppression of others, and we
must discern our own responsibilities in addressing these injustices following the lead of Lenape,
Nanticoke-Lenni, Ramapough Lenape, and other Lenni Lenape tribes and nations. Moving beyond this
acknowledgement and following in the work of Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, a Lakota person, on what
institutions of higher education should do respective of the Land Back movement, we demand that
Haverford College return institutional land back to Native nations. If institutional land cannot be returned
to Native nations, Haverford College should provide free higher education to Native students on their
traditional homelands as landbased reparations. Currently, less than 1% of the student body identifies
as Native and the College lacks any Indigenous studies courses or faculty. Haverford cannot
continue erasing the existence of Indigenous communities of the past or the present.
We, the students of color at Haverford, are responding to the egregious email you sent to
the student body Wednesday afternoon. Your email is a continuation of a long tradition of antiBlackness and the erasure of marginalized voices that have come to characterize the experiences of
students of color at Haverford. We are also deeply disappointed and angry that the administration has
learned nothing from the protests that ensued after the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony
McDade, and so many more at the hands of police – a time in which President Raymond reassured
Haverford’s commitment to anti-racism as the national conversation turned to abolition. It is through an
abolitionist framework that we choose to operate out of and implore you to begin doing so as well.
In your first correspondence addressing Walter Wallace Jr.’s death, you begin your email by
rightfully noting the grief and exhaustion of Black students on this campus. Yet immediately you
undermine our rightful anger, minimizing the importance of protest while placing boundaries on how
students can engage with their communities in Philadelphia. Although you claimed your email was to
protect us, who are you trying to protect? The image of the college? You have proven to us, yet again,
that your gestures are nothing more than a performative attempt to placate the anger of Black and Brown
students at Haverford.
The statements, "protesting will not bring Walter Wallace back" and "now is not the time" are
unsympathetic, counterproductive, and insensitive. For someone who claims to be “dedicated to antiracism and social justice,” these unexamined assertions actively harm the Black community, not just on
Haverford’s campus, but in all of our communities. In choosing to not actively support (e.g. increasing
COVID-19 testing, offering transportation, providing guidelines on how to protest safely, etc.) students
who want to protest for Walter Wallace Jr., Breonna Taylor, and all of the Black lives taken by police
officers, you are not only silencing our voices and preventing us from protesting the violence enacted on
Black people, but actively stopping us from reinforcing the dignity and humanity of Black lives by
showing up for community members down the street. By doing so, you are actively trying to suppress our
anger. Furthermore, in your email, you offered us a vigil and community worship space as an alternative
to protesting. When we only participate in the recognition of Black lives after death, we end up
perpetuating the death of Blackness itself. Instead, we should be celebrating, upholding, protecting, and
defending Black lives during life too. So, now, we ask you, if now is not the time, when will be the time
for Black lives to matter?
Your push for us to rely on the U.S. electoral system to make necessary structural and
institutional changes so that Black lives can truly matter is negligent of the history of policing and
structural racism in this country whose foundation is based upon settler colonialism, slavery, and

Indigenous genocide. No elected official can undo the violence Black and Brown people have suffered
and continue to suffer since America’s conception. Believing that participating in the electoral system is
capable of "making tragedies like this a real thing of the past" contributes to the liberal logic that the
electoral system is the solution to marginalized peoples' oppression when, in fact, it is and has proven to
be the opposite. Our current governor and the mayor of Philadelphia are Democrats; yet, Black
Philadelphians have not been protected under elected liberal officials like them. While we will continue to
vote, electoral politics will never actualize racial equality and the end to police violence—only abolition
will.
In the follow up email, you attempted to apologize and clarify your first statement. In doing so,
your overall message of “not our intention” was an act of gaslighting. You both need to take
accountability for what was said — and meant. The harm your emails caused and the message that you
conveyed about the value of Black lives can’t be undone through an emailed “apology” while you
continue to advocate for silent protests and performative vigils. Although you can apologize for the harm
you caused, it simply does not mean anything without action and meaningful, material change. At the
sit-in last night, you heard many of your Black students speak about their frustration and disappointment.
Quite frankly, this campus has failed its Black students (especially Black women and Black nonbinary
people), its students of color, and its FGLI students– the very people whose labor is the backbone of this
campus. These emails were just one more way in which you and this institution neither feel nor
understand how tired, angry, and ready for change we are.
This campus runs on the physical and emotional labor of FGLI + students of color through our
(usually multiple) jobs, extracurriculars, and classes. In this pandemic, that labor has intensified in
unimaginable ways, especially as the institution relies on our leadership to do the bare minimum of
supporting student needs. In addition, the majority of the staff members that allow Haverford College to
function are BIPOC, and frankly, the college has not done enough for them. It was disrespectful and
irresponsible that President Raymond and Dean Bylander’s email centered the goals of the college in
maintaining order over the emotions of the BIPOC students after another death of a Black person at the
hands of the police. We are no longer asking for inclusion or diversity since that gives more power to
the institution. Instead we will disrupt that order.
We will be going on a strike from our classes, our jobs (which we need), and any extracurricular
activities.
This campus can’t run without BIPOC. This is not just a reminder that we are valuable to you on
campus, but that our lives, minds, and bodies matter, both on campus and in our communities. An
apology prompted by our frustration and anger is not enough. A realization of your insensitivity after
harm ensued is not enough. We need and demand visible institutional change.

DEMANDS
We demand removal of President Raymond as “Chief of Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion.” Haverford must, instead, hire a BIPOC Chief Diversity Officer– vetted by
students and faculty of color on campus– who is committed to their interests rather than
the college’s.
We demand that you follow in the footsteps of Swarthmore College and cancel classes
on Election Day and provide paid leave for college employees.

We demand academic leniency for BIPOC and/or FGLI students who are
traumatized by the effects of COVID and constant police violence in their
communities. During a deadly pandemic, nation-wide insurrections against police, and
intense political instability, BIPOC and FGLI students have been expected to be able to
return to business as usual in regards to academics. Classes are not a useful distraction
from the horrors of police homicide, the devastation of COVID-19 in Black and Brown
communities, or the shattering of financial security for low-income people. Haverford's
non-committal stance encouraging professors to be lenient has been flatly ignored by
many professors on our campus. The Committee on Student Standing and Programs
(CSSP) issued several academic warning letters following the spring semester of 2020,
though each had no regard for the mass loss experienced by predominantly Black and
Brown students.
We demand that the school encourage and protect student participation in
supporting direct action. Rather than further alienating Black students on our white
suburban campus, we are calling on Haverford to encourage student and institutional
involvement in the abolition work done by activists on and off campus. This can be done
in several ways:
Providing institutional funding to mutual aid networks within the Bi-Co
community and broader Philadelphia
Opening up unused campus resources to directly support impacted communities
in West Philadelphia
Ensuring students who participate in direct action will not be punished for going
off campus, but rather set structures in place like expedited COVID-19 testing,
sanitation, self-isolation, and quarantine
Explicitly naming white supremacist groups and police forces as chief
contributors of violence at protests rather than spreading anti-Black tropes of
outside agitators that undermine protests against police violence
We demand the institution recognize and resolve that the increased surveillance and
policing amongst students in regards to COVID-19 primarily affects students of color,
who have always been more prominently surveilled by the campus community.
We demand Haverford honor and credit the work of Black women driving
institutional change instead of taking credit for their continued labor and erasing
their contributions. This includes the work from BSRFI, BSL, ALAS, SWOL, SALT,
and AOCC.
We demand that the school creates a framework to deal with problematic professors
and generates spaces of accountability– the honor code is not enough and it never
has been. We also demand adequate support and protection for both tenure-track and
contingent faculty of color, whose expertise is often minimized or ignored and whose
labor is exploited.
We demand that the school continue to pay the students who are participating in the
strike. Our supervisors should not be pressuring us to return to work during this time and
POC staff, especially in the Dining Center, Facilities, and the Coop, should be paid
overtime for the duration of the strike.

We demand that no student, staff or faculty partaking in the strike face financial,
academic or professional retribution, or penalties of any kind. If the institution is as
devoted to anti-racist work as they claim to be, they would continue to pay students who
are taking this principled stand by refusing to show up for work. Recognizing that
Haverford has long betrayed the trust of students of color and FGLI students on campus,
however, we are taking steps to ensure that dining facilities are not overwhelmed, people
will be able to access food and groceries, and students on work-study can receive
payment through the Bi-Co Mutual Aid Fund. We encourage students not on work study
and who have money to spare (this includes reaching out to family and friends) to donate
to the Bi-Co Mutual Aid Fund and help establish a robust network of mutual aid for the
Bi-Co Community and beyond.
We demand that the Bi-Co stop its violence against disabled students. Through
purported academic rigor, the weaponization of academic forced leave, a wheelchair
unfriendly campus, and inaccessible, white-dominated mental health services, disabled
students are continuously pushed out of our community. Many BIPOC students who are
disabled, mad, impaired, and/or neurodivergent face violence from professors,
administrators, and CAPS faculty. This can be countered through:
A more representative CAPS staff, whose practice is informed by the racial and
economic origins of mental illness and the acknowledgment of structural
disparities in diagnoses and healing services.
The abolition of mandated reporting of mental health details to police, CPS,
and/or administrative authorities.
No requirements for verification or documentation from “a licensed professional”
for academic and housing accommodations as this is exclusionary to low-income,
BIPOC students.
Consequences for professors who neglect necessary accommodations for
students.
Campus Safety should never be called during a mental health crisis, unless the
student expressly consented prior.
We demand more robust aid and support for queer and trans students of color. Our
retention rate of said students is deplorable, and many are forced to drop out or take
extensive leave. Many of our QTPOC students experience frequent sexual harassment
and assault. The honor code and Honor Council has either dismissed or declined to seek
justice for these assaults. Workable action includes:
An increase of LGBTQ+ CAPS therapists
Reserve hours for LGBTQ+ students with said therapists
Holding both professors and Committee on Student Standing and Programs
(CSSP) accountable to providing academic leniency when students come forward
about working through trauma
Provide an alternative or concrete reform to Haverford’s Title IX procedure that
does not include policing.
We Demand that the college terminate all relationships with the Philadelphia Police
Department (PPD), and actively work toward police and prison abolition. This
demand was previously made by BSRFI in the Open Letter and yet continues to be

ignored by the administration. Therefore, in addition, “The colleges will also divest,
both in and of themselves, from any partnerships that may exist, with companies
that rely on prison labor.” The PPD exists solely to protect capital and perpetrate
terrorist violence against those whose trauma and oppression the capitalist system profits
from. If the college truly supports the health of Haverford students and Philadelphia
citizens, whom the college continues to exploit on numerous fronts, then it is in its best
interest to end all relationships with PPD. It is unacceptable that we are forced to repeat
ourselves on this front, especially in light of the egregious harm PPD has brought to
Haverford students in recent weeks and long before.
The strike will continue indefinitely until the demands have been met and there is institutional
change.

IN CONCLUSION
The time for words and dialogue has passed. It is clear you did not listen to Black students when
you were first addressed in the Open Letter.[1] As was stated, “Should our colleges openly refuse or fail
to meet these demands within the given time period (two weeks time), we are prepared to be
uncooperative with standard college procedures and expectations until expeditious, recognizable,
and vigorous efforts are made.” This strike is the first of our uncooperative efforts.
We look forward to seeing real, tangible change take place. Until then we will not be stopped or silenced.

In anger and in power,
Women of Color House, Black Students Refusing Further Inaction, Black Student League, and every
single BIPOC student this institution has failed

RELEVANT DOCUMENTS
Google Drive
Strike Contact Information
How to Protest Safely
How to donate to the Nest
[1] Due to the egregious nature of the Administration not explicitly recognizing the work of BSRFI and
claiming their demands as the Administration’s own anti-racist work, this document would like to
formally state the originators of this strike and call to action is the Women of Color House. We would not
have the framework and support without the academic and emotional labor of BSRFI and BSL. Through
emotional and literal labor, this strike was made possible by entire networks of the BIPOC community.