On Thursday, the College held its 16th annual Claiming Williams Day — a series of programs dedicated to acknowledging the inequity that exists on campus and prompting individual, institutional, and cultural change. While the day was filled with fruitful and encouraging discussion about the history and current state of student activism, it also highlighted a painful and problematic truth: For too long, the burden has fallen on students and faculty — not the College’s administration — to envision an anti-racist institution and catalyze large-scale change.
The College’s administration must proactively address its shortcomings to foster an inclusive campus rather than passively benefitting from the labor of students.
Throughout the College’s history, students — predominantly students of color — have been at the forefront of institutional change. In 1969, members of the Williams Afro-American Society (a precursor to the Black Student Union [BSU]) occupied Hopkins Hall, spurring the College to start a formal Africana studies program. In 1991 and 1993, students led hunger strikes in protest of the College’s lack of a Latina/o studies program, a fundamental push that contributed to the program’s creation a decade later.
Even in the past few years, it has been students of color who have carried the weight of advocating for their own right to be recognized. When housing through the Theme/Affinity/Program/Special Interest (TAPSI) program — itself the product of decades of student organizing — was slated to be relocated, disrupting the campus’ affinity spaces, it required student activism for the decision to be reversed.
When affinity previews — a program for prospective students of color to familiarize themselves with the College — was introduced by the BSU in 2019, it required the labor of student organizers to ensure the program’s success, with little support from the College. In 2023, following the COVID-19 pandemic, it again fell to student leaders from various affinity groups to reestablish the initiative.
The institutionalization of an Asian American studies program and creation of an Africana studies major — both significant points of progress in the last two years — were the product of hard-fought organizing efforts led by students and faculty of color.
And we shouldn’t forget that Claiming Williams Day itself is the byproduct of student activism. In 2008, a racist incident sparked a series of student-led organizing — a town hall and rally — to demand the College to recognize the marginalization of students, staff, and faculty. Students originally proposed to cancel all afternoon classes on a Friday early in the fall semester in order to hold a “‘Claiming Williams’ discussion day.”
To this day, students lead a significant number of Claiming Williams Day seminars, yet another instance when it falls to student leaders to do the work.
The sheer amount of student activism over the last 50 years is evidence enough that the College, for which “diversity” is one of its central missions, has often failed its students of color. For instance, a recent administration-led initiative, an ad hoc anti-racist task force formed in 2022 following a series of bias incidents, has yet to publicly release any formal plan or actionable steps it has taken, despite promising to do so a year and a half ago. Meanwhile, the College can claim the fruits of student-led labor — affinity housing, ethnic studies programs, and a day dedicated to diversity — as evidence that it is a progressive institution.
The College — specifically its administration — must uphold its stated commitments “to eliminate harmful bias and discrimination, close opportunity gaps, and advance critical conversations and initiatives that promote inclusion, equity, and social justice on campus and beyond.”
Students are currently organizing for the institutionalization of an Indigenous studies program and better retention of faculty of color. The College should take these efforts seriously and recognize the debt it owes to student activism. It should prioritize and better support pre-existing initiatives, such as the Davis Center, that were created to protect students of color. And, finally, it should take a more active role in leading these efforts that have historically fallen to students.
For too long the College has depended on student activists to lead the imaginative and organizational charge to better this institution. It’s time for the administration to help carry this weight.
This editorial represents the opinion of the majority of the Record editorial board.
