The Coalition Against Racist Education Now (CARE Now) has extended its deadline for President Maud Mandel’s response to its list of demands from the original date of April 26 to Friday, May 3. According to CARE Now, Mandel confirmed that she would respond to its concerns in an all-campus email by Friday. 

CARE Now’s letter to Mandel outlines 12 objectives that its members believe would resolve what they perceive to be contradictions between the College’s practices and stated mission. The letter to Mandel follows a prior letter with demands sent to the Board of Trustees. The Board did not respond publicly to the demands as requested by an April 17 deadline. 

In announcing the extension in a Thursday post on its Instagram page, CARE Now posted an email it sent to Mandel that outlines what it expects from the administrative response, citing specific terms its members discussed in their meeting with Mandel last Wednesday. In this email, CARE Now requested “transparency on administration’s current efforts on issues listed in the demands prior to their release” and asked, “How has administration been working on these issues and how can administration make these efforts known to the student body at large?” 

On its Instagram page, CARE Now summarized what it is looking for from the impending administrative response to its demands: “We want contact people and timelines. We want transparency and accountability.”

Specifically, CARE Now requested that Mandel’s response include annotations on its list of demands and that these annotations detail a clear timeline for addressing feasible demands, and justification for why the administration is unable to address demands deemed unfeasible. 

Finally, CARE Now requested that for each demand, a contact person be provided whose responsibility is to either implement plans to address feasible demands. That person, CARE Now detailed,  would also find alternatives for demands deemed unfeasible. 

Mandel confirmed that she would write a response to CARE Now’s concerns by Friday and also told the Record, “I was glad to meet with members of CARE Now to discuss issues of mutual concern, and I look forward to continuing discussions with them and the whole community on how we can work to make Williams more inclusive.”