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Document Guide
ACTION STEPS FOR STUDENTS:
2
ACTION STEPS FOR FACULTY:
2
DEMANDS
5
IN CONCLUSION
9
RELEVANT DOCUMENTS
10
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
11
ACTION STEPS FOR STUDENTS:
1. 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.
2. Keep this strike alive on social media, email listservs, and in all your networks. Tag Bryn Mawr,
tag Kim Cassidy, tag independent media, tag everyone.
3. Distribute funds to organizations identified by @bicomutualaid.
4. To alleviate the burden on Erdman, New Dorm, Uncommon, and Wyndham workers, please limit
your engagement with the dining halls if possible.
ACTION STEPS FOR FACULTY:
5. Commit to this strike and disruption. We need faculty members to support student strikers-it
cannot just be BIPOC or FGLI faculty. Strike means no more business as usual; no classes, no
penalization, no taking up space.
6. Keep this strike alive on social media, email listservs, and in all your networks. Tag Bryn Mawr,
tag Kim Cassidy, tag independent media, tag everyone.
7. Distribute funds to organizations identified by @bicomutualaid.
Dear Bryn Mawr Community,
We would like to start this email by acknowledging that Bryn Mawr College is built on stolen Lenape
land, founded on racist and exclusionary ideals of prioritizing the education of wealthy white women, and
continues to perpetuate such racism every day. Haverford students have taken the time to acknowledge
that “Haverford College occupies land by Lenni Lenape people for over 10,000 years,” and as students
who are also learning and living on stolen land, we must reflect and educate ourselves on the land we
occupy. Bryn Mawr is complicit in the oppression and violent history of Indigenous people. Therefore,
we must acknowledge the space we take up and work towards decolonizing our institution.
For the past six days, Haverford College has been striking (see their demands here) in response to the
appalling email that President Wendy Raymond sent to members of the Haverford community regarding
the murder of Walter Wallace Jr. Throughout these six days, Bryn Mawr students have been striking
alongside Haverford students in solidarity. However, we, the students of Bryn Mawr College, are
declaring an on campus strike both in solidarity with Haverford College and in recognition that
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) students at Bryn Mawr have experienced similar
historial anti-Black violence, institutional racism, siliencing, and instances of white
supremacy. While we strike in solidarity, we also strike to dismantle systemic oppression in the Bryn
Mawr community.
Fellow students—being part of the Bryn Mawr College strike means FULLY committing to the
following until our demands (see pages 5 to 8) are met:
• No participation in ANY work surrounding the institution
• Do not go to class
• Do not go to TA sessions
• Do not do any academic work
• Do not do any on-campus work
With the exception of white and non-Black dining hall workers, who should
continue to go to work and not put added stress on the full-time staff. We
recommend that these workers donate their earnings to organizations in need.
• Do not participate in athletics
• Do not engage in extracurricular activities
• Do not pre-register for courses
• Do not do any labs or thesis work
• Do not submit work, including on Moodle
We acknowledge that many of you may be hesitant to stop attending classes and turning in assignments as
part of the strike because of the effect it may have on your academic standing. This is especially true if
you have professors (such as those in STEM departments) who are not supportive of the strike. Please
trust in the power of the collective and sign here to show your trust. Organize with your classmates
and reach out to your professors if they have not addressed the strike. For those of you who are major
representatives, leverage your position by reaching out to your faculty to ensure that they are aware of the
strike demands and conditions and that they are adapting their courses and expectations appropriately.
We recognize that this is uncomfortable work, but being part of the strike means being a part of collective
discomfort in order to demand change. If you truly want to support students who are impacted daily by
the legacy of racism at Bryn Mawr, you must examine your privilege and the ways that you benefit from
the marginalization of others.
It is crucial that no students cross the picket line. For white and non-Black students, this is the time to
show that your allyship is more than performative by striking and holding your peers accountable for
striking as well. It is a privilege, reminiscent of white supremacy, to be able to break strike knowing that
Bryn Mawr will never exploit your labor and trauma. Collective power creates the pressure needed for
institutional change.
Professors—while we understand that this strike may be conflicting with your lesson plans, it is
important to support your students who are taking action and demanding change. Fighting for what is
right rarely coincides with what is convenient. We must disrupt the order, as it allows the perpetuation of
racial inequity. To truly demonstrate your care and support for your students, we urge you to suspend
classes and assignments until the strike is over with the understanding that students will not be
engaging in academic work during the strike. As people who have devoted their lives to education, it is
necessary to educate yourself on anti-racism.
To all: Strike and support. Do not fail Bryn Mawr’s BIPOC students once again.
- Core Bryn Mawr Strike Collective Members
brynmawrstrike@gmail.com
“We will be going on a strike from our classes, our jobs (which we need), and any extracurricular
activities.”
•
DEMANDS
1. We demand transparency and intentional student involvement on the progress of the Bi-Co
open letter’s demands. Administration should provide regular reports and updates and/or make
available meeting minutes (without confidential information) informing students of the progress
and implementation of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism policies and other policies
impacting students within the College. Administration should also fully involve and integrate
student members with voting power on these types of faculty and administrative committees.
2. We Demand a Bi-Co course on Blackness and white privilege as part of the college-wide
requirements to be implemented in the next academic year (2021-2022). The course would be
designed alongside Black students, faculty, and staff with the objectives of exploring the history
of race to understand current social, economic, political, and cultural conditions. This course will
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
educate on the history of police brutality, cultural appropriation, microaggressions, and various
biases. It will expand beyond THRIVE, the 360 Program, and the humanities.
We demand that the school continue to pay the students who are participating in the
strike. Students should be paid for all work hours missed for the duration of the strike.
We demand that Bryn Mawr acknowledge the unseen labor of Black women and Black
trans/nonbinary people on campus. Following Haverford students’ demand on this, we see that
Black students and faculty on campus, particularly those of marginalized genders, continue to do
immense amounts of work to progress frameworks and action plans towards equity and social
justice while receiving little reward. Moreover, the history of unseen labor of Black servants as
outlined through the subject matter of the Black at Bryn Mawr Tour continues to be replicated in
the lack of acknowledgement of the work Black staff members do and the hardships they face on
campus. We demand that the work of Black folks working in all areas of the College be
recognized consistently (yearly) and publicly to the whole of the College community as they see
fit. Additionally, we demand that all Bi-co Open Letter writers and the Core Bryn Mawr
Strike Collective organizers be financially compensated.
We demand an implementation of yearly faculty diversity training encompassing cultural
competency and the need for social justice in their day to day work. This training must be
developed by people with significant expertise and scholarship in social justice work and require
sensitivity training regarding marginalized groups (ie. BIPOC, undocumented, disabled,
etc). Furthermore, as part of new faculty orientation, all faculty will be required to read chapters
of Ruth Enid Zambrana’s Toxic Ivory Towers, The Consequences of Work Stress on
Underrepresented Minority Faculty. Current professors will be required to read these chapters as
well, the summer before the 2021-2022 academic year.
We demand the implementation of a “reparations fund” towards a yearly allocation of
funds and resources to Black and Indigenous students in the form of grants for summer
programs, affinity groups, multicultural spaces, and individual expenses such as books,
online courses, therapy, and any and all financial need beyond the scope of racial justice
work. This fund should also be used to support the local Black and Indigenous communities in
Ardmore, Lower Merion, and Philadelphia.
We demand an increase in funding for the Enid Cook Center ‘31 community
funding. Previously, the ECC ‘31 community funding was at, or below, $5,000 for the entire
academic year. The fund has recently been raised to $10,000 for this academic year. However,
this is an inadequate source of funding to account for the college wide-events held in an
academic year for all members of the Latin/x and African Diaspora in the Bryn Mawr
Community. This fund should be increased to at least $25,000 (yearly) to support costly college
wide ECC events that celebrate the past, present, and future members of the Latin/x and African
Diaspora in the Bryn Mawr Community, such as, Friendsgiving and Legacy Day.
We demand the REMOVAL of all names and monuments present on the Bryn Mawr
College campus dedicated to individuals who had a history of oppressing past students,
faculty, and staff who did not align with the wealthy white feminist agenda. We are
particularly interested in the removal of M. Carey Thomas’ name inscribed on the Old Library
building façade and Woodrow Wilson’s sign on New Gulph Rd.
We demand the Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges take an ACTIVE role in Police and
Prison Abolition. Although Bryn Mawr College does not have a formal contract with the Lower
Merion Police Department, the Campus Safety department works very closely with them “in
cases of identity theft, where a police report is needed, or to accompany an ambulance, where
urgent care is needed.”[1] Rather than working with local law enforcement, we believe the College
can formally implement transformative justice practices by partnering with organizations[2] whose
main goal is transformative justice and harm reduction in order to fully meet the needs of
addressing harm in our community. We want to see a timeline detailing definitive steps
towards forming these partnerships and separating from local law enforcement. In addition,
the departments must reopen all racial discrimination cases against Campus Safety and take
actions accordingly. Finally, we call for an intentional recruitment of Campus Safety with
backgrounds in social work.
10. We demand that administration actively encourages students at Bryn Mawr and Haverford
College to utilize transformative justice methods in conflict resolution. Given the COVID-19
pandemic, as just one example, the anonymous report form has perpetuated a biased form of
policing where students reported other students because of their personal feelings, which BIPOC
students have feared would most severely impact them. In addition, there were a significant
number of reports made about concerns that needed immediate confrontation, such as mask
wearing and social distancing. The lack of direct confrontation reflects a white supremacist
culture, which demands the presence of authority for addressing conflicts. More specifically, the
predominantly white social atmosphere on both campuses have eternalized the narrative that
Black students are ‘threatening’ and ‘unapproachable’ members of the community. Black
students are policed as a result of the ubiquitous anti-Black racism that infiltrates both campuses.
While the honor code encourages “gentle confrontation”, the social and institutional racism
prevalent in the Bryn Mawr community have allowed students to perpetuate the narrative that,
BIPOC members of the Bryn Mawr Community, especially the Black members of the Bryn Mawr
Community, are ‘aggressive’ and ‘dangerous’. The College should encourage students to seek
other approaches in solving conflict instead of immediately resorting to Campus Safety and
administrative faculty and staff. Again, we want to see a timeline outlining definitive steps
towards the campus-wide implementation of transformative justice teaching and practice.
11. We demand that Bryn Mawr follow in the footsteps of our peer institutions and make
partnerships with local Black social justice efforts. These efforts include but are not limited
to BLM Philadelphia Chapter, The Mainline NAACP, Philly R.E.A.L Justice, Free Mumia
Campaign, The Abolitionist Law Center, Coalition to Abolish Death by
Incarceration, Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, Shut Down Berks Coalition, etc. We expect
the colleges to recognize the ways in which they have extracted from local Black communities
and use this as an opportunity to begin the process of amending said relationships.
12. We demand that the Bi-Co stop its violence against disabled students. Similarly to BIPOC
members at Haverford College: through purported academic rigor, the weaponization of academic
forced leave, a wheelchair unfriendly campus, inaccessible, white-dominated mental health
services, and an under-resourced Office of Access Services, disabled students are continuously
pushed out of our community. Many BIPOC students who are disabled, impaired, and/or
neurodivergent face violence from professors, administrators, Deborah Alder, and Access
Services staff. This can be countered through:
1. More transparency between Access Services 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.
2. The establishment of a full-time Access Services coordinator as well as multiple support
staff who are able to authorize accommodations. BIPOC disabled students should be
involved in the process of hiring these new staff.
3. No requirements for verification or documentation from “a licensed professional” for
academic and housing accommodations as this is exclusionary to low-income, BIPOC
students.
4. Consequences for professors who neglect necessary accommodations for students.
5. The permanent abolishment of strict mandatory attendance policies.
6. The abolition of mandated reporting of mental health details to police, CPS, and/or
administrative authorities.
7. Campus Safety should never be called during a mental health crisis, unless the student
expressly consented prior.
13. We demand that the College stops charging BIPOC international students, and
undocumented students whom are considered international students, extra scholarship
tax. Over the years and currently, many international students, mostly BIPOC, have paid the
school twice or thrice the tax refund. This mainly affects Black international students who
depend on on-campus employment wages to sustain themselves in a foreign country and, at times,
their families back at home. Hence, this puts an additional burden on students and forces them to
work extra hours than counterparts to pay the cost. This has impacted Black international students
financially and has further impacts on their health and academic performance having to
compromise academics and health in order to work sufficient hours and to finance themselves and
their families. Additionally, campus employment is the only accessible job to international students.
The tax refund disproportionately puts stress and labor onto international students. We want the
BMC administration to follow what most campuses do, a good example being our sibling
school Smith College where the school does not charge their students scholarship taxes at all
as it is the school’s duty to pay taxes.
14. We demand that winter break and summer break housing costs for BIPOC international
students be reduced to accommodate BIPOC international students. Many BIPOC
international students remain on campus not by choice but because they don’t have a place to go
and sometimes cannot afford a flight back home partially because all the wages they earn while
working on campus is paid back to the school. Hence the only option left is to reside on campus,
which is still challenging because they are also faced with high housing costs. Considering their
only employment source is campus wages, which is not sustainable to accommodate such costs,
most students end up in debt and spend most of their time in school working extra hours than
intended to pay this extra cost. We request either:
1. The school to reduce the housing costs for BIPOC international students
and undocumented students, who are technically considered international students, during
breaks especially those on financial aid or,
2. Include these charges as part of the school’s funding for Black students by creating a fund
and increasing the fund to accommodate Black international students.
15. We demand that Bryn Mawr College declares itself as a sanctuary institution. Bryn Mawr
College has REFUSED to declare itself as a sanctuary institution for several years. As a result,
our undocumented, DACA, and other students who have similar, but nuanced, migration statuses
continue to remain the most marginalized and vulnerable population of the Bryn Mawr Community.
Given the current xenophobia that is prevalent in the United States, the college should be committed
to protecting these students as they access their right to education. It is their right to privacy. It is
Bryn Mawr’s obligation to protect their privacy from ICE, Campus Safety, and any other entity
enacted to defy their right to services, employment, education, and place.
16. We demand the inclusivity of undocumented students, particularly those without DACA
status and work authorizations, on work payment systems. As of now, Bryn Mawr has no way
to pay its undocumented students and instead direct them to request emergency funding from the
Dean’s office which does not acknowledge nor resolve the problem at hand. Our sister school,
Smith College, as well as Tufts University have implemented a method to pay their undocumented
students in a matter of months. Bryn Mawr continuously states that they are “working on it” but
have yet to provide concrete solutions, we demand those solutions to be implemented before the
2021-2022 academic year.
17. We demand grade protection and the implementation of student suggestions to
the Curriculum Committees.
18. We demand that Bryn Mawr College respond to each of the individual above demands in
the form of concrete action and change. We will not conclude the strike until our and
Haverford students’ demands are met and a statement is issued with a timeline detailing
how specific demands will be fulfilled. The school, (remembering that the brunt of this
labor should not be on the backs of Black students, staff, and faculty) will employ and
properly compensate all students in the fulfillment of these demands.
The strike will continue indefinitely until the demands have been met and there is institutional
change.
“The claim to a national culture in the past does not only rehabilitate that nation and serve as a
justification for the hope of a future national culture. In the sphere of psycho-affective equilibrium it is
responsible for an important change in the native. Perhaps we haven't sufficiently demonstrated that
colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native's brain of all
form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts,
disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance
today.” - Franz Fanon
IN CONCLUSION
This is not an exhaustive list to address the historic and current systemic marginalization and oppression
of BIPOC, QTPOC, FGLI, disabled BIPOC, undocumented BIPOC, and international BIPOC as well as
other underserved and underrepresented communities. We acknowledge that substantive steps have been
taken by the administration, but a legacy of inequality and inequity must be met with a legacy of justice.
And that responsibility and labor must be continuously and rigorously undertaken and preserved by Bryn
Mawr College.
As promised in our first Open Letter, we are to remain uncooperative with standard Bryn Mawr
procedures until our demands are met transparently with clear timelines and budgets.
In Solidarity and Further Disruption,
The Core Bryn Mawr Strike Collective
In Collaboration with,
Sisterhood*
BACaSO
Mujeres*
Zami+
Mawrters for Immigrant Justice
RELEVANT DOCUMENTS
How you can support
Bi- Co Mutual Aid Fund Transparency Sheet
Scholar Strike
The Uncommons by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to express our gratitude for Haverford’s Women of Color House, Black Students Refusing
Further Inaction, and Black Student League. Without support and resources from these students our strike
would not have been possible. Additionally we would like to thank Perry House Alum, Enid Cook
‘31, Danielle Cadet ‘15, and Florence Goff whose labor allowed for Black students to be seen. Finally,
thank you to all of the BIPOC students, faculty, and staff whose invisible labor is at the core of Bryn
Mawr.
[1] This was an argument provided on why the College cannot disband all of its relationship with the Police
Department.
[2] Philly Stand Up is an example of an organization that works to address harm (sexual violence in this case)
through a transformative justice framework.
Bryn Mawr Strike 2020 Statement and Demands
Statement issued by the Core Bryn Mawr Strike Collective on or around November 3, 2020, "declaring an on campus strike both in solidarity with Haverford College and in recognition that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) students at Bryn Mawr have experienced similar historical anti-Black violence, institutional racism, silencing, and instances of white supremacy." The document outlines action steps for faculty and students, a list of eighteen demands, relevant documents, and special acknowledgements.
The Core Bryn Mawr Strike Collective (author)
(approximate) 2020-11-03
6 pages
born digital
2020_11_03_ca._BRYN MAWR STRIKE 2020 STATEMENT and DEMANDS