A Year of the advisory council
Note: I wrote this for Black and brown Hamilton students. In the backdrop of the pandemic, of the Summer 2020 protests, of the growing far right movement around the globe, of the legacy of Trump, it’s been a hellish two years (to say the least). I wrote this while thinking about what it means to be a Black, queer, non-binary, neurodivergent Hamilton student as we entered the one year anniversary of the creation of the advisory council.
I hope you all are taking care of yourselves as much as possible.
This past June 14th, 2021 marked a year since Hamilton College announced the creation of President David Wippman’s advisory council. The council, in addition to other diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments announced, followed community concerns around the “Condemning Racism and Inequality” statement released by the College about the murder of George Floyd; a statement in which there is no inclusion of the words “Black Lives Matter,” nor even a recognition that Black individuals are disproportionately targeted and killed by law enforcement.
In the announcement of the advisory council, President Wippman also claimed that the College would host “listening sessions with members…of the Black and Latinx Student Union.” President Wippman made this claim without any previous communication with the Black and Latinx Student Union (BLSU). Further, the advisory council had only two students (only one of whom stayed on the council for the entirety of its existence) and had no elected student representatives from any student organizations, most importantly none from any identity-based student organizations, such as BLSU. The unpermitted use of BLSU’s name and the creation of the advisory council with little to no involvement or input from students and marginalized members of the Hamilton community thus led to the release of BLSU’s demands, the denouncement of the advisory council, and the creation of the Student Assembly’s Audit and Action Council.
As the former co-chair of BLSU and current Student Assembly President, I have been one of the leaders who are challenging the advisory council and the College’s refusal to incorporate marginalized student voices into its DEI and other justice-oriented programs and policy creation and implementation.
When President Wippman released the initial statement about George Floyd, which included the inadequate and insubstantial declaration that “the pain of recent events falls disproportionately on some members of [the Hamilton] community,” I was completely disgusted and completely unsurprised. In my three (at that time two) years at Hamilton, the College has consistently demonstrated a lackluster and performative “dedication” to true and genuine racial justice. Drowning in depression and sorrow brought on by the continued murders of Black people, I could do no more in the moment than feel muted anger and exhaustion.
When he announced the intent to create an advisory council and subsequently claimed the College would be working with BLSU, that muted anger very quickly turned into a kind of rage.
As co-chair of BLSU at that time, it was mine and the other members of the Executive Board’s responsibilities to ensure that we upheld one of the core beliefs of BLSU, which is that our members and greater community are kept in the loop as much as possible when the organization makes major decisions, especially ones that may impact them. Following the College’s use of our name without our permission, we received many messages questioning why we made such a decision, and had to quickly explain to members that we had no idea what had happened.
In essence, we tried to figure out what was going on, and when it became clear that the College was not going to give us answers or respect our positions as student leaders, we began a campaign calling for the abolition of the advisory council and the creation of an Action Council, along with other demands. You can visit BLSU’s Instagram and the petition page to learn more.
A year later, the advisory council has been dissolved after completing its purpose, which was to establish a list of recommendations for President Wippman to further racial justice at Hamilton. While the advisory council no longer exists, the impact of Hamilton’s explicit refusal to respect student power and voice lives on. Today, the work started by BLSU is continued via the Audit and Action Council, created by Student Assembly for the purpose of auditing the advisory council and creating its own recommendations for the College. Unlike the advisory council, the Audit and Action Council has representatives from almost all identity-based organizations, including BLSU, as well as staff, faculty, and alumni.
With just a year left in my Hamilton career, and still a semester left as Student Assembly President, I’m not entirely sure where to go from here. I look back to a year ago, where there was a temporary re-birth of Hamilton’s racial justice movement, building on generations of previous movements, and I see that unfortunately there has been no tangible, systemic changes. The continuation of the pandemic, increasingly worsening student mental health, an excessive focus on performing academically well, in addition to who knows how many other factors, make it almost impossible to keep up the energy and dedication that is necessary to make the kinds of systemic changes that Hamilton needs. Not to mention the College’s refusal to actually change. And I mean actually change.
Hamilton College, like all higher education institutions, was created by and for rich, white, cisgender, heterosexual men. Its first Black student wasn’t admitted until 1885, and its second in 1919. Women had never received an education on the Hill until the creation of the great Kirkland College in 1965. In fact, many of the aspects of Hamilton a lot of us love, including the open curriculum, are part of the legacy of Kirkland College; a legacy which Hamilton has almost entirely abandoned after forcing a merger in 1978.
Higher education is structured specifically to uphold the supremacy of the elite and ensure that the oppressed have little to no power to liberate themselves. Without systemic transformation, Hamilton College will never be a place where marginalized students, especially those who are most marginalized, can safely and happily receive an education that isn’t created for the purpose of furthering “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (as bell hooks puts it).
It isn’t enough to create DEI centers (that the College then waters down and undermines) or hire a separate Chief Diversity Officer (that answers to rich white donors and the Board of Trustees) or accept more Black students (who won’t be given the kind of institutional support they’ll need). Diversity was created and continues to operate for white supremacy and white people. Institutions like Hamilton invite Black and Brown individuals in for the sake of seeming “diverse” or “progressive,” and to claim that they are antiracist and postracial. If they can include pictures of students of color having fun on their websites in admissions brochures, then they can make the argument that Black students thrive at their institution. Students of color (or white students who are interested in attending “diverse” schools) are then attracted to a false reality of acceptance and unity. Once the institutions feel they have just enough students of color to seem progressive, those institutions do little to nothing to actually ensure that those students are going to be able to thrive. Hamilton College is that kind of institution.
Thinking about my final year at Hamilton, I am fully aware that it is going to be as traumatizing as my first three, and possibly even more so. I don’t know where higher education is going to be in two, five, ten years. I don’t know where Hamilton is going to be. All I know is that if it stays where it is, more Black, Queer, trans, low-income, disabled students are going to suffer, and they will suffer greatly.
We don’t have time for councils that take no action, for college administrators and leaders who refuse to be held accountable, for student governments and organizations who aren’t fighting every day for theirs and others’ liberation. We absolutely have to take strong actions, and we have to take them now. Students have so much incredible power, and tapping into it is how we’re going to transform Hamilton into the kind of place of learning and education that we deserve.
Every time Hamilton angers and disappoints me, which it does very often, I want to give up so badly, as I’m sure many others in similar positions as myself do. But I can’t, we can’t. If we give up now, there will be no chance to start again. We must do everything we possibly can in our power to fight for liberation and justice. Whether you’re doing it at Hamilton, or in Utica, or in your hometown, just please, please fight. Fight for the radical and systemic transformation that is needed to save everyone, present and future.