As the results of the elections sink in, some at Wesleyan will be cheered by the outcomes, others will be distressed. It may be challenging now to remember that democracy and higher education have been good for each other. We don’t have to pretend to be neutral, but we do have a job to do. The work in this new political context is to continue to maintain Wesleyan’s commitment to an education based in boldness, rigor, and practical idealism. That work has never been more important.
The University will do everything it can to protect the most vulnerable among us. The mass deportations promised by president-elect Trump threaten our students who may be undocumented and are a cause of great concern to many in our community. As we said after the election of 2016: Wesleyan will remain committed to principles of non-discrimination, including equal protection under the law, regardless of national origin or citizenship. The University will not voluntarily assist in any efforts by the federal government to deport our students, faculty or staff solely because of their citizenship status. Today, the work to defend the most vulnerable has never been more important.
Candidate Trump promised to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion departments and to punish those schools who do not live up to his version of civil rights standards. At Wesleyan we have long believed in the educational power of diversity, and we know that our Office for Equity and Inclusion has a vital role to play in our educational mission. We will redouble our efforts to enhance belonging while we cultivate a greater pluralism. That work has never been more important.
The University will continue to defend academic freedom, which has allowed universities to create teaching environments free of official censorship or the soft despotism of pandering to commercial popularity. The classroom must remain a space for professors to share their professional expertise with students who could in turn explore ideas and methodologies without fear of imposed orthodoxies. The campus must strive to be the home of an ecosystem of genuine intellectual diversity. Cultivating an environment in which people can pursue ideas and forms of expression without fear of retaliation has never been more important.
The attacks on higher education, on democracy, on the rule of law, threaten to sweep away freedoms that have been hard-won over the last 100 years. Education is a process through which people develop their capacities for exploration, collaboration and creative endeavors. They learn to treat new ideas with curiosity and respect, even as they are also taught to critically evaluate these ideas. They learn skills that will be valued beyond the university and habits of mind and spirit that will help them flourish throughout their lives. They work to think for themselves so that they can be engaged citizens of a democracy rather than mere subjects of an authoritarian regime. That work has never been more important.
However we feel about the election’s results, we must strive to make education and democracy protect and nurture one another. At our university that will mean a very intentional effort to protect and nurture the seeds of a democratic culture. We must reject the cultivated ignorance that is used to fan the flames of hatred. We must defend the freedom to learn together in our schools, colleges and universities so that we can continue our democratic experiment. At Wesleyan, to quote our mission statement, we work to be “a diverse, energetic community of students, faculty, and staff who think critically and creatively and who value independence of mind and generosity of spirit.” This work has never been more important than it is now.
In the name of my late friend Grace Fox Donati, an alum, I applaud this move hope many universities follow suit, for we must protect the most vulnerable among us, now more than ever!
Thank you for your visionary leadership! I hope all presidents follow your example.
Dear President Roth,
I’m an 82 year old man, a child of immigrants, and a proud alum of Weslyan’s class of 1964. I’m writing in response to President Roth’s email regarding yesterday’s Presidential election.
To begin with, am enormously proud of the direction the university has taken after my graduation in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In my day, the rumor among undergraduates was that the admissions office annually strived for an entering class consisting 70% Protestants (John Wesley was a Methodist, after all), 20% Catholic, 10 Jewish, and one Black person per year, a second was allowed if he was from Africa. The only visible evidence of this policy was the one Black person per year.
One beautiful afternoon in the Spring of 1964 I was walking across campus with my good friend Jimmy Frost (1965), who was that year’s sole Black person. Opening up to me, Jimmy said that he was terribly lonely. He missed his tight knit Harlem community, and it was hard living on a white campus with almost no faces that looked like his. I suggested that maybe he should hitch down to New York, the way I did. He gave me a long look and asked: “Can you see me with my black face standing on the Merritt Parkway with my thumb sticking out?” It hit me like a punch in the gut. I really knew nothing about what it meant to be Black in America. There was a world of possibilities open to me that were closed to my Black friend.
Perhaps, if my Wesleyan has been more like today’s, I would have had a better understanding of the world Jimmy lived in.
As the son of immigrants whose family fled the Nazi’s and moved to New York City in 1939, I find the president elect’s xenophobia, racism, and nativism absolutely abhorrent. We are a nation of immigrants, except for those brought here in chains and the aboriginal peoples, whom the early immigrants almost succeeded in extirpating. Every new wave of immigrants (be they Irish, German, Italian, Eastern European (often Jewish), Chinese, or Japanese) has brought its own drive, energy, dynamism, genius, beautiful diversity, and willingness to take any job, not matter how hard or nasty. Closing the door is not only cruel, it is stupid and self-destructive.
Regarding your intention for the Wesleyan, as Harlem Representative Adam Clayton Powell famously said in 1967:
“Keep the Faith.”
Best,
Matthys Van Cort 1964 CoL