Dear Signatories of BASE (Biola Alumni Standing for Equality),
The BASE team (Dr. Jacob Daniel, Logan Zeppieri, Claudia Kalmikov, and Anthony Costello) wants to again thank you for your support of this petition. Below is the BASE team's e-mail addressing the delay in Biola responding to our clarification to Biola's concerns regarding the BASE petition. This response was sent on August 4th, 2020. More updates are soon to follow.
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Dear Scott,
It has now been over one week since we responded to your contentions about some of the "Concerns" listed in our petition. As pointed out in those responses, we remain unconvinced that there are factual errors in the petition. Furthermore, if it is the position of Biola that there still are such errors, then we would ask that those contentions be made public for the sake of demonstrating Biola's willingness to address its alumni on this issue, and to clarify for its alumni why it sees these as errors.
In addition, since there has been no response to our request for a meeting with Dr. Corey and the administration on the problems associated with CRT at Biola, and since there has been no indication that any of our three, concrete action items are being addressed by Dr. Corey, we are committed to keeping the current petition public, as well as continuing to promote it to alumni, donors and supporters of Biola University and Talbot School of Theology. Our petition now has over 800 signatories, so this is not an issue that can be further ignored by Biola.
Finally, as we continue to have conversations with relevant Christian leaders in the domain of higher education, and other alumni of Biola, we recognize the need for this entire discussion about CRT at Biola to be made public. This effort requires transparency and openness now that there is legitimate concern about the kind of education Biola is offering to young minds. Some of these concerns may be unwarranted, but until they are publicly addressed by the administration they will persist.
Scott, we realize how difficult these times are, especially in dealing with the state legislature of California. However, we have seen enough evidence to suggest that the politics of the state, if not the nation, are themselves being driven by the ideology of Critical Theory, to include political decisions being made about things like COVID-19. Thus, we stand firm in our position that this is the main issue of our times, one that must be addressed with clarity and with courage, and with urgency.
in Christ,
The Base Team