Strike Organizers letter to the Board of Managers

November 2, 2020
Dear Haverford College Board of Managers,
By now, the Haverford Strike probably has come to your attention. We are the group of BIPOC students
from Haverford College who are organizing the strike.This group is made up of students from the Women
of Color House, Black Students Refusing Further Inaction (BSRFI), Black Student League, and many
other BIPOC on campus that were moved to act after we received the insensitive and harmful email from
President Raymond and Dean Bylander about the murder of Walter Wallace Jr. It’s the 5th day of the
Haverford Strike, and we wanted to reach out to you to introduce ourselves, ask that you support the
strike and take actions to meet the demands we’ve set forth in our letter that we wrote to President
Raymond.
While the email is the most recent event that has harmed the Black and brown students on campus and our
surrounding communities, this strike is a result of institutional and structural racism and anti-Blackness
felt and experienced by BIPOC throughout their time at Haverford College. The strike is to express that
Black and brown student labor is undervalued but is essential to running the college, thus we are
stopping all academics, work, and extracurricular activities. We are striking and demanding to have
explicit institutional and structural changes set in place to support students of color at Haverford College
and the Black and brown communities surrounding us. And we won’t stop striking until the demands
are met.
Back in June, BSRFI wrote an Open Letter to the Bi-Co community which only had a few of its demands
met. Of the few initiatives that were taken, the Black and brown students (mostly Black women) were
often not credited for their hard labor which is a continuation of the erasure of Black voices and the hard
work they do. More recently, we’ve had a sit in and a march to express our anger and frustration with how
President Wendy responded to the killing of Walter Wallace Jr. and the way it treats its Black and brown
students. A more detailed outline of the events is here.
We are writing to you for several reasons. You have the power to make structural and institutional
changes to Haverford College. You have the power to determine the policies that control our experiences
on campus. You also have the power to determine leadership and the path that the college takes from this
point on. Right now, we as Black and brown students experiencing Haverford College, are
communicating with you and directing you on the path that Haverford needs to take in order to truly
support the BIPOC students that attend it. To be frank, we are exhausted. The role of creating structures
and frameworks to support BIPOC students shouldn’t fall on us. The college needs to already have that
set in place. At the moment, Haverford College is an institution that attracts Black and brown students
with false promises of support, instead exploiting their trauma for educational purposes for the benefit of
their privileged peers. Now is the time to change the course of the college with real, concrete structures to
make sure that BIPOC students can succeed and feel supported.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. We look forward to your solidarity with the strike and steps to
meet the demands.

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