We are taking action today to demonstrate that we are serious about our demands. We will not sit back and wait for your platitudes; we have been demanding action for decades, and we will not wait another decade in silence. We are forcing you to see us. We have been here, but you have chosen not to acknowledge us, whether by ignoring us or criminalizing our existence. We are taking action now, but we will escalate. You have until the first day of the winter term to publicly address our demands and outline a plan to meet them. If you fail to do so, we will escalate and take further action. The following are our demands:
We demand that President Beilock, affiliated offices, and those addressed in this letter reply to us via The Dartmouth newspaper by January 3rd, 2024. We invite responses, engagement, and questions to [email protected].
- Comply with the recommendations of the 2022 Amnesty International report on Israeli apartheid by divesting the College’s endowment from all organizations that are complicit in apartheid and its apparatuses. This should be done in collaboration with students from the Palestine Solidarity Coalition (PSC).
- Commit resources to climate change resilience in the Upper Valley region. This must include funding local, sustainable, affordable, and rent-controlled high-density housing both on and off campus.
- Provide reparations for Native American students and local native communities as part of a continued process of increasing collaboration with Indigenous people and addressing the atrocities committed by Dartmouth. A symposium between the college, Indigenous students and alumni, and local Native peoples must be held to discuss and outline a plan for implementation by the end of the 2024 academic year.
- Increase the minimum wage for all student workers to $21 an hour. This wage must also adjust based on inflation.
- Act on promises to establish a standalone Asian American Studies program and minor that is separate from the Department of Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages and develop a clear track to a major/departmentalization in concordance with students and faculty from the Dartmouth Asian American Studies Collective (DAASC). This includes funding and beginning the search for a new tenure track line in Asian American studies as well as hiring a permanent administrative faculty to oversee and support the initiative.
- Commit to significantly increasing numbers of faculty of color across all offices and departments until parity is reached with the proportion of students of color (~47%). Special attention should be focused on increasing representation among tenured and tenure-track academic faculty and staff counselors and psychiatrists within the Counseling Center.
- Establish and respond to yearly surveys for students of color and queer students through the Office of Institutional Research. These should intersect with and complement currently existing surveys, especially the Sexual Assault and Misconduct surveys and Dartmouth Health surveys. These must culminate in yearly published reports on racialized and gendered violence at Dartmouth and a concerted effort to address these issues.
- Establish a permanent, on-campus Pan-Asian house and community space that is comparable and equitable to the LALAC House, Native American House, Shabazz Center, and Triangle House.
- Reduce housing and food insecurity, particularly during interim and leave terms. As part of this, we demand that Dartmouth fully fund a food pantry accessible to both students and community members. Ensure housing and food security by lowering the cost of College housing; guaranteeing residents in College housing those rights and protections afforded to regular tenants under local, state, and federal law; allowing residents in College housing to opt out of College meal plans in favor of more affordable options; and providing grocery stipends to students receiving financial aid.
- Achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 by generating carbon offsets on Dartmouth property and in the Upper Valley region as a way of investing in the broader community.
- Create green, well-paid, union jobs accessible to both Dartmouth and non-Dartmouth affiliated community members to facilitate a transition to carbon neutrality. This must include providing stipends to working class and marginalized students and community members to engage in activist projects with the aim of building community resiliency to the climate crisis.
- Completely fund the development of a broader public transit system in the Upper Valley. As part of this, the College should meet with Advanced Transit and pledge to provide them with greater financial support.
- Abolish the consideration of legacy status as well as demonstrated interest (in specific regards to visiting Dartmouth prior to acceptance) in undergraduate and graduate admissions.
- Financial aid must be guaranteed for more than 12 terms and during leave terms
- Financial aid must cover housing, food, and emergency costs for students living on or near campus during off-terms.
- Financial aid must cover all costs related to study abroad programs, including LSAs, FSPs, Exchange programs, and Transfer terms until equitable socioeconomic representation is reached within these programs.
- Require students to take a course in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Department in order to graduate.
- Allow students to take more two-course terms to enable working students to maintain a work-life balance. Additionally, expand the times of day that classes are being offered - especially including night classes - to more efficiently use space on campus and provide more flexibility to working students.
- When writing and implementing Dartmouth’s sustainability goals and climate change mitigation strategies, local native people, people of color, and students and alumni from countries most affected by climate change must have a central voice in the discussion and throughout the planning process. Meetings should be held monthly beginning by the end of the 2024 academic year, as part of this, people’s time must be compensated in order to ensure accessibility to working-class people.
- Initiate a dialogue between Native Peoples and the college to discuss giving land in the Second College Grant back to Native people. A series of meetings between the college, Indigenous students and alumni, and local Native peoples must be held to discuss and outline a plan for implementation by the end of the 2023-2024 academic year.
- Replace the Board of Trustees with faculty-student-staff councils driven by the needs of students instead of the College’s profit motive. Sustainability goals and the needs of students and the community, in general, shouldn’t be decided based on what the college views as most profitable.
- Enact reforms to the time away policies. In addition to the vital reforms announced in 2023, including ensuring students take time away, housing security, food security, and all privileges afforded to students taking leave terms. Grant students greater autonomy in decisions regarding mandatory time away for medical reasons.
- Cut all ties with the military-industrial complex. Completely divest from any companies profiting off war, ban military contractors from advertising or recruiting on campus, and phase out ROTC programs on campus.
- Provide mental health and sick pay for every student worker.
- Repeal or amend school policies that restrict activist groups on campus, including those cited to prevent the memorial in front of Parkhurst (namely, repeal restrictions on the location where activists are able to organize demonstrations as well as policies in place that limit the duration of demonstrations).
- Create a solidarity house as a living-learning community centered around activism to provide a permanent space for activists to build community and intersectional solidarity on campus.
- Join the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University as part of a continued effort to shed light on and reconcile with the racist roots of this institution.
- Issue a public update on the progress towards the demands of the Dartmouth New Deal and any additional demands made by student organizers on a termly basis.
We demand that President Beilock, affiliated offices, and those addressed in this letter reply to us via The Dartmouth newspaper by January 3rd, 2024. We invite responses, engagement, and questions to [email protected].