Hi everyone!! Thank you so much for getting us this close to 650 :) Here's what's happened since Wippman released the Advisory Council: both BLSU and the Student Assembly have released statements condemning his actions. Please go read them carefully on their insta accounts or your email if you have an @hamilton.edu email. Here are some highlights from BLSU's statement:

"The exclusion of Professor Shelley Haley, student organizations, and more from the Advisory Council, tone-deaf and dismissive attitude of the College President, and consistent and sustained avoidance, redirections, and secrecy surrounding anything pertaining to the processes by which the College plans to address interpersonal and systemic bigotry on our campus have led us to have little faith in the direction and capacity of Hamilton College to adequately fix these problems short of a total restructuring of its plans."

"We urge all community members to sign this petition (https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/hamilton-college-follow-the-leadership-of-black-and-non-black-poc/)to support members of our community who are BIPOC."

"On June 14th, following criticism from the Hamilton community regarding multiple public statements made by the College in reference to the current global Black Lives Matter protests, President Wippman announced the College’s newly made commitments to racial justice, wherein they would establish listening sessions and an Advisory Council to the President, in addition to a $200,000 per year financial commitment to “equity and inclusion initiatives” for the College over the next five years. In this email, the College listed BLSU as one of the groups that would take part in the upcoming listening sessions. 

We never communicated this to them."

"We spent hours giving thought and care to how we would structure our first email, and it totaled almost 2,000 words. Just like Professor Shelley Haley received a non-committal response that did not address her concerns, neither did we. President Wippman responded with four sentences. He simply stated that the listening sessions would be held “with different groups and individuals, including students, staff, faculty, and alumni, all without preconditions” with the purpose of “[assisting] the College and members of the Advisory Council as [they] work to carry out the steps outlined in [his] June 14 letter to the community.” No mention of why we felt the need for preconditions. No apology for committing us to action without our consent. No commitments to anything other than 'listening.'"

I urge you to read their entire statement, and the Student Assembly statement supporting them. This kind of organizational united front against President Wippman shows how abysmal his response has been, and highlights the necessity of his dismissal.

I would also like to address a common response to this petition, which I have also felt since posting it online. Many people have criticized the call to have David Wippman fired, citing that his firing will do absolutely nothing to change the deeply problematic, colonial roots of Hamilton College as an institution. I absolutely agree. This petition is simply meant to dissent to those roots on a scale that isn't overwhelming. Wippman is a representation of everything that Hamilton College stands for, and as such, the school has absolutely no interest in removing him from his post. Were he removed, chances are, his replacement would remain in the pocket of the trustees. However, the alternative is to do nothing, and I can't abide that any longer. Despite our collective inability to do anything about Hamilton's white supremacist legacy, which continues TO THIS DAY, we may have the collective ability to get this man out of a position of power at our school, which could lead to an increase in the collective power of faculty, staff, and students against the administration and trustees in the future.

I hope this helps. Keep fighting! Sign BLSU'S Petition! Black Lives Matter. Abolish the Police.