Correspondence #3
The following correspondence is the alumni group's response to Anne Houtman, president of Earlham College, in regard to the email sent on November 8. You can review that email in Correspondence #2.
Sent: Thursday, November 9, 2023 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: Earlham alumni calling for action on Palestine
Anne,
Thank you for your response. Below, please find our newest correspondence with the Earlham administration:
Dear Office of the President and Board of Trustees of Earlham College and to the Earlham Community,
Earlham alums are responding in rapid numbers in solidarity with Palestine. Since we began circulating the Palestine solidarity statement yesterday morning at 10am ET, over 600 Earlham graduates with class years ranging from 1975 to 2023 have signed. We invite you to read their names and messages to the Earlham administration. We thank each and every one of them for speaking up.
We would like to draw attention to the fact that face-to-face conversations on this issue, as alluded to in a response to our open letter, are fraught with risks to individuals, as well as the academic careers of current students. While we appreciate your calls for peace, this neutral language minimizes the brutality of ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. As students of history, we cannot accept the bothsidesing of occupation. This is not an “Israel-Hamas War” – this is a crisis point in a decades-long brutal occupation perpetrated by an apartheid regime which has long sought to make life unbearable for Palestinians - what SJP has been educating the Earlham community about for over 15 years. Our demands are in no way an ultimatum, but a framework to begin the process of moving forward. We are happy to move this process into talks with the administration should we receive sufficient response and acknowledgement, and after inviting other alums who have signed and share our concerns about Earlham’s moral stance on Israel’s war crimes taking place in Gaza.
Quaker testimony guides us to extend compassion for the nuanced dimensions of the human experience resulting from violence. We are currently bearing witness to the massacring of human beings, the destruction of civic infrastructure, and flagrant violations of international law. We are, collectively, witnessing grave moral injury as the U.S. government
facilitates and exacerbates irreparable destruction, and as institutions across the world appropriate Jewish suffering to allow for mass murder.
Speaking truth to power is also a commitment of Quakerism, and one which, for us, made Earlham College a unique place. While at Earlham, in and outside of the classroom, we encountered a culture that was profoundly critical of violent and unjust structures globally.
The administration’s silence is a refusal to stand against Israel’s genocidal actions and a refusal to support our community of current students, faculty, and alums. In the absence of explicit, principled responses to the ongoing genocide, the Earlham administration, in effect, chooses to ignore the roots which breed this violence. There is no neutrality in genocide: not to call publicly and explicitly for a ceasefire is to side with the oppressor. Earlham’s legacy and identity require courageous truth telling. Earlham must set the tone for campuses across the US, as it has done in the past.
We express our deep gratitude to the faculty and staff who have attempted to support Earlham’s Palestinian community and solidarity actions but who were limited by the structures currently in place. We see and know that there is much to be done. As members of the multitudinous Earlham community, a community spanning generations, continents, and all manner of differences, we are aware of the lack of space to voice concerns and to be truly heard on campus. We will continue to hold space for our Palestinian friends and peers–current students and graduates alike–and will continue to update you as the numbers of engaged graduates grow, and as wider networks of graduates take shape at this critical historical moment.
As we wait for Earlham to put its principles into practice, as we wait for our alma mater to join the millions globally who are calling for a ceasefire, we, the undersigned, will consider suspending our support to the College through direct donations, as well as refraining from recommending the College to prospective students. Without swift action from the College administration, in solidarity with current students and the greater Earlham community, Earlham dishonors its Principles and Practices (Peace & Justice, Community). We will continue to gather signatures and will proceed with calls to action until our four demands are immediately addressed and steps are taken towards meeting them.
In unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people,
Members of the Earlham College Alumni Community
Alex Feagans, Class of 2014 Liberal Arts, Middle Eastern Studies
Alex Goldberg, Class of 2015 Politics
Alia Hamad, Class of 2009 Politics
Alma Raymer, Class of 2012 Peace & Global Studies, Comparative Languages & Linguistics
Amal Tamari, Class of 2022 Studio Art
Angelica Carpio, Class of 2020 Politics
Anonymous, Class of 2023 Biochemistry
Bilan Elmi, Class of 2014 Peace and Global Studies
CatiAdele Slater, Class of 2021 Peace and Global Studies
Cheyenne Stewart, Class of 2014 Biology
Chloe Fitzpatrick, Class of 2014 Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Cole Carvour, Class of 2014 Comparative Languages and Linguistics
David T, Class of 2012 Middle Eastern Studies
Devin Rothman, Class of 2014 Environmental Science
Esther Wadzanai Mano, Class of 2021 AAAS & HDSR
Eve Dewan, Class of 2009 Classical Studies
Francis Copp Wellin, Class of 2014 Sociology / Anthropology
Grace Makhoul, Class of 2018 Peace and Global Studies & Comparative Languages and Linguistics
Graham Pines, Class of 2020 English
Jonathan Jenner, Class of 2010 Economics; Peace & Global Studies
Julia Berner-Tobin, Class of 2012 English
Kaitlin LaMoine Martin, Class of 2007 Sociology / Anthropology
Kari Wilder-Romans, Class of 2006 Biochemistry
Kelly Sullivan, Class of 2014 History
Laith Sayed Ahmad, Class of 2014 International Studies
Lama Mawla, Class of 2012 Philosophy
Laura Nitti, Class of 2009 Women's Studies
Leah Koch. Class of 2014 Psychology
M.R. Gottlieb, Class of 2013, History & Philosophy
Nadine Abdallah, Class of 2008 Biology
Nidal Atallah, Class of 2009 Geology
Rafaella Shima, Class of 2021 Biochemistry
Salma Khalaf, Class of 2022 International Relations & Affairs
Sheldan Lindsay, Class of 2022 Neuroscience
Sofia Wolman, Class of 2011 Politics
Sophie Christenberry, Class of 2014 Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Yana Miller, Class of 2021 Neuroscience
Yusra Alsaleh, Class of 2012 Peace & Global Studies
Note: The signatures listed are those of many of the central organizers of these Earlham alum efforts. A number of collaborators remain anonymous due to security and life circumstance concerns.
