#IntegrateAmherst: Updating to Remain the Same

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun’s book, Updating to Remain the Same. Chun observes that crisis interrupts habit, and, in response, social actors and innovators respond to crisis by reinventing the old habit as fresh and updated, but more or less, the same. Chun quotes Milton Freidman “‘‘only a crisis— actual or perceived— produces real change.’” However, Chun argues “Crises become ordinary…thwart change and make the present, as Lauren Berlant has put it, an impasse, an affectively intense cul-de-sac.” The

#IntegrateAmherst: An Update on Progress

We have good news. President Biddy Martin has agreed to most of our demands. In an email, President Martin provided us with a brief outline of the commitments she has made and the timeframes within which the work will be done: 1. The college will establish an institutional Bias Reporting and Response Protocol by Fall 2020. 2. Revisions will be made to both the college’s statements of Academic and Expressive Freedom and Freedom of Expression and Dissent. More specifically, Presiden

Why We Must #IntegrateAmherst

Johnson Chapel houses portraits of two black men: Charles Hamilton Houston ’15 and William Hastie ’25, major figures of Black history.The two Black faces in the white-portrait-filled Johnson Chapel are Charles Hamilton Houston ’15 and William Hastie ’25, the legal architects of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Their presence among the faces of people who actively and passively worked to defer their dream of racial integration is hypocrisy to the point of comedy. Through this cont

Amherst College Is Ill-Equipped to Handle Racist Violence and Threats of Racist Violence

On Saturday night, several white lacrosse players and other white students screamed and chanted “N*gger! N*gger! N*gger! Goodnight, N*gger!” outside of a Black lacrosse player’s room, while the Black lacrosse player and another Black student were inside of his room, as reported in The Student and further confirmed by additional sources. The two Black students were the only Black people present on that floor. There is no question of to whom this threat and act of violence was directed. The uttera