biggreenmicroaggressions

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for over a year bgma has drawn attention to the unacceptable, dehumanizing behavior on bored@baker and by the Greek system/ social institutions at Dartmouth. bgma has made repeated calls for the school to make adequate changes for a sustainable future. finally the administration has candidly and publicly admitted that the social deterioration has played a part in the 14% application decline alongside joint Title IX and Clery investigations by the Department of Education and ritualized drinking. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/prepared-remarks-by-philip-j-hanlon-president-of-dartmouth-college/2014/04/16/149e56b2-c5ad-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html there is SOOOOO much work that needs to be done. but, part of finding a sustainable solution is openly acknowledging that there is indeed a problem. we are critically optimistic. we hope that the creation of yet *another* in-house committee (how many are we at this point for the same repeated problems), does not just serve as dressing for inaction. let your words not function as lip service, President Hanlon. we need change and a timeline for how and when the proper steps will be taken. please do not let yet another report get filed in the cabinets for the sake of hoarding without a response on the provisions. TRANSPARENCY IS KEY. questions that need to be asked: who is on the committee? how were they selected? what is at stake? what voices are included and excluded from the committee, and for what reasons? how will the committee be held accountable? why are there not non-Dartmouth affiliated actors and/or experts on the Committee? what happened to all the other reports submitted to administrators and the Board of Trustees in the past? why can we not revisit those reports before inaugurating another committee to create solutions already submitted? why reinvent the wheel when the blueprints are available? what about an external evaluation of previous reports? or bringing in McKinsey again? http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jameswright/archive/report/ http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jameswright/archive/report/summary.html we hope that students, alums, faculty, staff, administrators, the Board of Trustees, everyone will continue to fight for this College on the hill so that it can lead the charge in what a model university should look like in the 21st century. https://youtube.com/watch?v=LjImhaaYjjE our work here on bgma is done. the blog will stay up for the sake of institutional memory. peace.

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"We are a great institution, 245 years old, poised for an even better future. (Pause) But Dartmouth’s promise is being hijacked by extreme behavior, masked by its perpetrators as acceptable fun. The list of offenses is familiar. From sexual assaults on campus…to a culture where dangerous drinking has become the rule and not the exception…to a general disregard for human dignity as exemplified by hazing, parties with racist and sexist undertones, disgusting and sometimes threatening insults hurled on the internet...to a social scene that is too often at odds with the practices of inclusion that students are right to expect on a college campus in 2014. The actions I have detailed are antithetical to everything that we stand for and hope for our students to be. There is a grave disconnect between our culture in the classroom and the behaviors outside of it—behaviors which too often seek not to elevate the human spirit, but debase it. (Pause) IT IS TIME FOR DARTMOUTH TO CHANGE. And as your President, I will lead that change." "On campus, extreme behaviors are harming too many Dartmouth students, dividing our community and distracting us from our important work of teaching and learning and advancing the frontiers of knowledge. And they are doing serious damage to Dartmouth’s reputation: In the last year, applications have declined by 14%. A Title IX investigation is under way. External scrutiny of our campus life has never been higher. We can no longer allow this College to be held back by the few who wrongly hide harmful behaviors behind the illusion of youthful exuberance. Routinized excessive drinking, sexual misconduct, and blatant disregard of social norms have no place at Dartmouth. Enough is enough."

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Kyle Ashlee April 14, 2014 "Simply because an individual has been selected to attend one of the best educational institutions in the country, doesn’t mean they must silently endure instances of bias, hate, and disrespect." "It takes bravery to stand up and voice a contrary opinion, especially at a place like Dartmouth where individuality is seen as disloyalty to tradition."

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that one time President Hanlon announced that an "anonymous" donor pledged $100 million dollars to D... "Here's a number for you: 100 million. That's how many dollars the College invested in the private firms of members of the Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2010 (according to a report by Tellus Institute, a research and advocacy group in Boston, cited in the May 20, 2010 edition of BusinessWeek). Yes, you read that right: The Trustees basically take money out of one piggy bank on the bookshelf and put it in another piggy bank by the bedside table, much like my six-year-old brother does. Except his second piggy bank doesn't then proceed to accrue more money due to post-investment growth. We take care of Our People. And who are our people? What are the demographics of our Board members, and who do you think they care about?"

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"I am a descendent of slaves attending a school that was founded with my explicit exclusion in mind. I walk through halls built by my shackled ancestors and I wonder what it means for my body to exist here, for me to be working toward a degree from an institution that sits on stolen land and was built with stolen labor." "Race permeates every brick on this campus and seeps through in past chancellors who supported Apartheid and grandiose celebrations of a charter that expressly includes as a purpose of William and Mary(http://web.wm.edu/hermajesty/charter.php?svr=www) “the Christian faith… be[ing] propagated amongst the Western Indians”. This isn’t about looking for something to be offended about. This is about each of us deserving to learn in an institution that respects our histories and acknowledges the role it plays in our continued oppression. William and Mary’s history cannot be undone, but there are steps the College can take to ensure students understand this heritage and know how to respectfully interact with it. Creating a General Education Requirement for a course on the College’s history that includes the things tour guides are instructed not to talk about would be a concrete starting point. Pressuring the Board of Visitors to release an official apology for the College’s complicity in human subjugation and suffering (and demanding a reason why, if they won’t) would take us a step closer to standing on the side of justice."

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creative avenues of challenging the status quo by the freedom budget collective. reframing history in the 1902 room. adding some much needed color

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LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL FOX News/Bill O'Reilly refers to the Freedom Budget protest/ sit-in as an element of the supposed "grievance industry." "The grievance industry says America is not a fair nation." but it isn't sir. it was built off the joint genocides of Native Americans and enslaved Africans by the Europeans not to mention everything that happened afterwards. knowledge is power. also, never trust someone who refers to other people as "race hustlers."

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how academic institutions perpetuate transphobia.

tw: transphobia

Breaking: Trans Student Denied On-Campus Housing at George Fox University

An African-American transgender student–who’ll be a junior at George Fox University next year–has been denied on-campus housing at the Oregon college. Jayce M., from Portland, Ore., has medically and socially transitioned and has started his legal transition. Jayce’s attorney, Portlander Paul Southwick, filed a Title IX discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Friday morning.

In a letter obtained by PQ Monthly, Mark Pothoff, Dean of Community Life, who partnered with Brad Lau, Vice-President for Student Life, along with four members of the Board of Trustees before making the decision, outlined the institution’s denial–and their rationale. The school is in the process of adding to their housing policy that they will house students by his/her biological birth sex–which, according to college officials, needs more time to be developed, and to “coincide with a theological and philosophical statement.” 

….

In lieu of on-campus housing, college officials offered “conditional” approval for Jayce–to live off-campus with male students for the 2014-15 school year. The conditional approval, according to the letter from college officials, is a “one-year exception”–and subject to change at any time. In order to receive “full approval” to live off-campus with male students, Jayce must meet a variety of requirements before June 1–including legally changing his name and gender for the following items: his driver’s license, his social security card, and his birth certificate. (The demand about his birth certificate was later rescinded.)

Additionally, school officials–at first–insisted they “must meet with” all of Jayce’s potential roommates in order to “affirm they understand his story, are willing to live with him,” and that his roommates “have informed their parents about this living arrangement.”

Pothoff did present another option: “If you desire to only live on-campus, we may be able to provide a single room for you, although we agreed this was not a good option (though we would certainly do our best to connect you with the larger community if you were in a single room).”

“I recognize this decision may be controversial to some people in our community,” Pothoff writes. “However, I think you’ve provided good rationale that caused us to reconsider the initial decision. […] Jayce, I’m glad you’re at Fox and I want to continue to see you be successful here.”

…

George Fox, who on Thursday denied Jayce’s last appeal on the matter, refused to meet with Southwick and Jayce to resolve his housing situation informally. Despite pleas from Jayce and his mother–including a direct appeal to the President–the university continued to deny Jayce’s request for on-campus housing. The school did, eventually–and after meetings with Jayce and his mother–remove the off-campus requirement that Jayce’s friends inform their parents that they are living with a transgender student, since that would have been a violation of Jayce’s privacy rights, and that he change the sex listed on his birth certificate, according to Southwick. (He was born in Tennessee, which remains one of the few states that makes it impossible for transgender people to change their sex on their birth certificate.)

…

In a bright spot, Jayce’s mother–who’s been incredibly supportive–has started an online petition at change.org. “I am speaking out for my African-American, transgender son, Jayce,” she writes. “Jayce wants to live with his male friends in on-campus housing next year, but George Fox University refused to allow it because Jayce is transgender.” You can find her petition here.

Sign the petition here.

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Open Letter from The Oberlin Coalition in Support of the Dartmouth Student Sit-in

It should not be our responsibility to teach our academic institutions how not to oppress us by recognizing their own privilege. http://goo.gl/AW4pCv We, a coalition of Oberlin College students dedicated to fighting for institutional transformation on this campus, stand in solidarity with the students at Dartmouth College who occupied President Phil Hanlon’s office this past week. Here at Oberlin, students who are of color, low-income, queer, trans*, and/or differently-abled are viewed and treated by the college (as well as a disturbingly sizeable portion of the student body) as expendable to the institution. People are repeatedly disrespected, pushed out of spaces, and reminded that these establishments are not created for them to succeed. We recognize the actions of our fellow students at Dartmouth as courageous, necessary steps that must be taken if institutions such as ours—ones that advertise themselves on falsified notions of diversity, inclusivity, and dignity—continue to treat “dialogue” as a synonym for structural violence. Whenever we have tried to apply what we have learned in the classroom to our daily lives at Oberlin we have been met with indignation from the administration and Board of Trustees. This includes our efforts to demand greater transparency from the Board, institutional support for Asian American Studies (a struggle that has been ongoing for the past 40 years), divestment from six corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation, and the creation of a scholarship fund for undocumented students. We are writing this open letter in recognition that our struggle is shared with the students at Dartmouth. Let the actions of these Dartmouth students be an inspiration to those of us who wish to put into practice the theory we have been privileged to have access to. Right now we are experiencing a nationwide surge of consciousness in higher educational institutions around the oppressive nature of the systems we live in. We as students understand that our freedom and our future is tied to the liberation of all peoples in and outside of higher education. We strive to make our educational pursuits catalysts for changing the system we have inherited. We acknowledge that both the Dartmouth coalition’s, as well as our own list of student demands, mark only the beginning of a series of indispensable actions that must be taken in order to confront needed changes in admission policies, workers’ rights issues and the vastly unequal distribution of wealth between our institutions and the greater communities they occupy, among myriad other issues, in order to reveal and change the true nature of the United States higher education industrial complex. It is an apparatus that by nature operates to control—not transform—society, and we will no longer be silent and unquestioning. We wholeheartedly support all that confronts, and disrupts, the system. From Tuesday, April 1st through Thursday, April 3rd, a group of thirty students occupied the Dartmouth president’s office in response to continued institutional neglect and violence towards the school’s historically marginalized communities. On February 24th, students submitted a document called the Freedom Budget to President Hanlon, consisting of demands pertaining to undergraduate admissions, curriculum, faculty diversity, financial aid, and much more. The demands our coalition delivered to the Oberlin College Board of Trustees on October 10, 2013 are reflected almost word for word in the demands outlined by the Freedom Budget. In turn, the president offered an anodyne response the day before finals, which made it impossible for the student body to respond. Students at Dartmouth, CUNY, Mills, Harvard, NYU, UCLA, Earlham College, University of Michigan, Mount Holyoke College, and Oberlin, as well as students at many other colleges and universities, have resisted and organized in the face of institutional racism and microaggressions over the past year. These conditions are not unique to our campuses and are a reflection of the structural inequalities that exist in the U.S. education system and nation as a whole. Last month, fraternities and sororities at the University of Alabama won the institutional right to reject applicants based on their race. It comes as no surprise that this policy arose after a sorority turned away two Black women. These policies harken back to the backwardness of American society in the 1960s, as if Dr. King and all of his brothers and sisters in the movement had never existed. We are in solidarity with the People of Color at the University of Alabama—indeed, with all underrepresented students defying the university’s bland and homogenous demographic—and encourage them to take action to disempower these oppressive and embarrassing facets of their community. Political statements and social movements have transformed the fabric of American institutions, shaping a culture and creating policies that truly reflect the desperate need for those in power to address the myriad injustices within our society. This past Friday (April 4th) marked our 46th year without Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., someone who we have come to regard as a pioneer, a martyr, a visionary and even as a hero; five years prior to his assassination, he sat in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, after having been arrested for civil disobedience during his campaign to end segregation. We cannot deny our history of labeling those brave enough to combat oppression as terrorists only to later refer to them as revolutionaries. At Oberlin, generations of frustrated, ignored, and underrepresented students have fought for the liberties we are accustomed to today. It is our responsibility to ourselves, to our peers, and to our fellow students at colleges around the country to take direct action to address the needs of the students of Oberlin College. We stand, sit, stomp and shout in solidarity with our peers at Dartmouth whose voices continue to be drowned out by a cacophony of superficial replies created by the administration in response to the Freedom Budget. As Dr. King wrote from his jail cell: “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It is crucial that we continue to demand attention and solutions to the violences that are ignored and invisibilized by administration, staff, and our peers on a daily basis. We will not tolerate accusations of (in)civil discourse as presented by an administration that characterizes students as inarticulate due to passion, and lacking in their ability to listen, engage in productive dialogue, or exercise mutual respect. This tactic obscures the series of events and injustices that have triggered us to respond with legitimate urgency. It also affirms students who are vehemently opposed to such expression and puts us in danger by fueling hostility towards people who challenge the status quo. Why is it that when students of color speak with conviction about issues that affect them, they are continually portrayed as irrational and overly emotional, as if emotion and logic do not work in unison? We have spoken with patience for far too long without any significant results. How can we enter into a productive negotiation when we are framed as a threat, and our ideas are watered down from the beginning? If we accept these grounds for negotiation then we are forfeiting before it even begins. We are disgusted, but unsurprised, by the reaction of President Hanlon. As someone who has unapologetically admitted to a group of students that he is unable to define white supremacy, such vapidity should be predictable. However, even at Oberlin, whose motto asks us to consider what structural transformation looks like, the relationship between these Dartmouth students and the school’s president emulates our own relationship to the Oberlin administration. Evidently creating the change we want to see in the world involves engaging in liberal sloganeering, not radical praxis. Both of these administrations’ efforts to maintain a progressive image prove that they do not truly understand us and the places we come from. Nor do they care for our survival, much less our flourishment. President Hanlon’s inability to define “white supremacy,” as a white male who has positioned himself as a leader of the higher education industrial complex, is prime evidence of this. It should not be our responsibility to teach our academic institutions (that we are entering to learn from and making ourselves financially indebted to) how not to oppress us by recognizing their own privilege. We demand that the members of our campus communities who come from privileged, dominant backgrounds, especially students a nd administrators in leadership positions, educate themselves before claiming to be in solidarity with us. If we are to truly support marginalized groups, the institution’s response tactics cannot fit within the capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist framework that both President Hanlon and President Krislov have directed students to utilize. In fact, both our coalition and the Dartmouth students who occupied President Hanlon’s office have attempted to work through institutional channels for change (by sitting on committees, working with organizations, etc.); yet we have found that these channels are both ineffective and ultimately detrimental to our personal well being. Our demands and tactics are the result of many years of institutional silencing. The students’ brave actions at Dartmouth remind us that movements are kinetic; we cannot afford to remain stagnant. We believe in and support the rights of students to demand change from within their institutions that have long failed to serve them. We believe that education has multiple capacities—we as students must decide whether we will allow our education to serve as a vector for continued oppression and marginalization or as a liberational tool. We believe colleges and universities should create spaces for the exchange of knowledge—a knowledge that supports and furthers the political, intellectual, and emotional empowerment of all students. We believe that administrators have a responsibility to actually act in support of students when making claims of inclusivity and diversity. Although the corporate media and the people it represents often avert their eyes from situations like these and the lived experiences of students all over the nation, we know what we have lived. This is not the first time that students have stood up to systems of exclusion and it will not be the last. We remain in firm support of the students of Dartmouth in their occupation of President Hanlon’s office. Someday soon, the day will come when the collective outcry generated by students who have reached their boiling points will be so loud that it can no longer be ignored, casually skirted over, or decried. Our schools and administrations will have to give our student bodies—the bodies that are scarred, harassed, ostracized and abused—the responses we have requested, the responses we deserve. Those in power at our institutions cannot afford to vilify students any longer; if our situations worsen or do not improve, and if our needs are not being met, then the movement will continue to gain momentum and push back. In solidarity, The Oberlin Coalition References: 1) http://www.scribd.com/doc/208843285/The-Plan-for-Dartmouth’s-Freedom-Budget-Items-for-Transformative-Justice-at-Dartmouth 2) http://revolutionarystudents.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/ccny-vice-prez-for-student-affairs-bans-student-leaders-from-campus/ 3) http://revolutionarystudents.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/ccny-vice-prez-for-student-affairs-bans-student-leaders-from-campus/ 4) http://itooamharvard.tumblr.com/ 5) https://www.facebook.com/ItooamNYU/photos_stream 6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEO3H5BOlFk 7) http://earlhamword.org/the-earlham-word/2014/2/7/coalition-calls-for-answers-trayce-peterson 8) http://www.michigandaily.com/news/black-students-list-demands-university 9) http://mohonest.tumblr.com/aboutus 10)https://docs.google.com/a/oberlin.edu/file/d/0B9uQw3y0AxvtSm9jdC1UWU5iUGc/edit 11) http://cw.ua.edu/2013/09/11/the-final-barrier-50-years-later-segregation-still-exists/ 12) https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/source/articles/2013/10/30/civil-vs-incivil-discourse 13) https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/source/articles/2013/10/17/board-trustees-update-oct-2013 14) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTsI0Y1q78Y 15) http://oberlin.edu/alummag/fall2013/imgs/changetheworldposter.jpg

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http://i.imgur.com/r4Ousq2.jpg (clearer version) seeing external response to Dartmouth. after an ED ‘18 posted on U.Mich fb group, U. Mich students poignantly critique Dartmouth campus life, student protests, and D’s reputation. “especially with all the student protests…definitely wouldn’t want to go there if the students were protesting their own school.” the esteemed late historian Howard Zinn revealed that “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.” ― Howard Zinn Jalil Bishop ‘14 during his January 20, 2014 introductory speech for the Keynote Address of Dartmouth College’s Annual Celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. also stressed the significance of protest as a tool of destabilizing the status quo in order to create transformative justice. "They [the freedom fighters in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom] were protesters because they knew that protest was a necessity, not just for civil rights but also for democracy. They knew that protest is a legitimate form of discourse. I said, protest is a legitimate form of discourse." http://blackpraxis.com/2014/01/23/mlk-celebration-2014-protesting-for-change/ student protests at D certainly shows that it can and will be used as one instrument for change. not the only, but most certainly a “legitimate” option

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please now shift your attention to shitdartmouthsays.tumblr.com a different project by different moderators.

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A female student was raped after her name and personal information was posted to what students are calling a “rape guide”. Now, students are protesting the way Dartmouth handles sexual assault cases.

Ultraviolet has a petition going that wants to bring Dartmouth to action. You can take a look at it here.

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external campaign for change at D

Tell them to GET RID OF THE RAPE GUIDE AND SEVERELY PUNISH THE AUTHOR OF THE SITE AND TO PRESS CHARGES ON THE RAPIST OF THE WOMAN LISTED IN THE RAPE GUIDE!

Board’s Secretary Marcia Kelly: (603) 646-2221

President Philip Hanlon: (603) 646-2223

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY.

Students are calling for…

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Op-ed published today by Dartmouth alum in Counterpunch. finally we see some truth telling happening. it is time to smash the "window dressing" to transform Dartmouth. By Christopher C. Schons "“We should have gotten rid of the fraternities.” That is the conclusion reached by former Dartmouth College President David T. McLaughlin in a 1997 interview. McLaughlin lamented that the “negatives of that system . . . outweighed the positives.” Indeed, in 1978 the Dartmouth faculty had voted 67-16 to abolish fraternities and sororities. Later, in 2001, 101 faculty signed a letter decrying the fact that they continued to observe in their classrooms ”female students and students of color who suffer from institutionalized practices of sexist and racist humiliation that fester largely unabated within secret fraternity culture.” And in 2012, 105 Dartmouth faculty issued a statement condemning the hazing taking place in the College’s fraternities as “moral thuggery” and asserting that “Greek organizations operate and in some cases are constituted directly in opposition to the values the College holds dear.” Yet despite this long history of official conclusions about their deleterious effects, fraternities at Dartmouth College remain ensconced."

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'Whitewashed, Unmasking the World of Whiteness' unpacking white privilege and ramifications of becoming "white" once in America "white privilege is the power to move through the world fearlessly"

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"“Shutting down a privately hosted site is not easy, nor uncomplicated,” said Justin Anderson, assistant vice president for media relations at Dartmouth College. “We do have the ability to keep it off of our server, but we certainly don’t have the ability to block access to it effectively.”" so...many students specifically asked for you to block access to b@b from the school servers Justin and it was communicated that it is impossible to do that. yet you say this. what? http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/05/universities-debate-how-quell-cyberbullying-confession-websites#ixzz2vHogpocD

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campaign to expose the racial aggressions and white supremacy at Harvard. so important to emphasize that racism also exists at Dartmouth. http://itooamharvard.tumblr.com

#ITooAmHarvard is a project by Black students at Harvard to speak out about the racism that they experience in their daily lives as students. It will also be a play.

Pretty heartbreaking. These beautiful and bright students deserve so much better. Above I included some of the photographs (there’s many more) of Black women who are students there because I think it’s important to point out how racism is not only impacting Whites’ perception of their intelligence but also how White people approach their appearance as well, in gender-specific ways. This is heartbreaking to me albeit not surprising. The myth that working hard = happy payoff is a fairy tale. Racism is ubiquitous. 

I really wish them the best with their education and the ability to navigate these microaggressions and overt acts of racism. This stuff increases stereotype threat and impacts mental health and health which impacts performance. I want the best for them. Much love. ❤