You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Earlham College canceled class Thursday in order to hold a series of meetings with students, faculty and staff about a list of diversity concerns distributed by a group of students earlier this week.
Students at the Quaker college marched across campus on Monday and presented the "list of requirements concerning students of color" to the college's president, David Dawson. "The administration at Earlham College has been made aware that a group of students have concerns about issues related to diversity on campus," Brian Zimmerman, the college's director of media relations, said in a statement.
The students' requirements for the college include that Earlham create a multicultural center that provides counseling and is staffed by people of color, that it more easily allow for exemptions from "expensive and mandatory housing and meal plans," and that it offer diversity training for all students, faculty and staff. Among other requirements, the students also demanded that at least 30 percent of the college's faculty, staff and administrators and 20 percent of the Board of Trustees be people of color by 2020.
"As it currently stands, this campus is unsuitable for students of color to thrive," the students wrote. "Earlham is failing to sustain the diversity that this college promises and, because of this, we cannot in good faith endorse Earlham as a place suitable for students who value diversity, fairness and equity."
