Reception To Our Work

Though CCL&I is an undergraduate research committee, our work is inherently political. With that, the Committee remains involved in on-campus dialogues and conversations. Alongside our research, we have created and circulated two petitions -- one in 2023 and one in 2024. Entitled "End William & Mary's Honoring of White Supremacy" and "Gates Must Go: End William & Mary's Violent Venerations," both petitions aimed to mobilize the campus and broader Williamsburg communities to display the shared sentiments and concerns regarding the College's decisions and, in some cases, blatant inaction. Both petitions accrued over 1,000 signatures combined, alongside the support we received through our instagram. 

Since these petitions were formatted as open letters, the Committee awaited a response or acknowledgment of our efforts from administration. After we were unable to present our 2022-2023 Landscape Report to the Board of Visitors, we found ourselves unsure of if our most recent petition would incite any response from administration.

In efforts to spread our most recent petition, “Gates Must Go: End William & Mary’s Violent Venerations,” we as a committee attached the aforementioned petition, published 2022-2023 Landscape Report, and our website in an email sent to members of the William & Mary administration, in hopes that our recommendations and student concerns would reach administration's deciding bodies. As part of these efforts we included College president, Katherine Rowe, in the email –  requesting an acknowledgement to student concerns amidst inaction from Administration commenting on the issue further.

To our surprise, we received a response on behalf of the President asking for personal names of committee members. We disclosed only our co-chairs in hopes to receive a response from President Rowe as we as a committee are dedicated to separating the identities of our members from our research as we view it as a collective effort. In addition, we chose to keep the names of our co-chairs anonymous for the safety and privacy of our members, as we have faced backlash from entities operating in bad faith in the past. With the disclosure of our co-chairs names and emails, President Rowe directed her emailed response to these two students individually, an unexpected use of the disclosure that was targeted by nature and unexpected from typical conduct from a President of a College. As undergraduate students at the College, our committee feels as though there is little we can do aside from drafting a prompt response addressing both concerns and discrepancies in President Rowe’s response.

With that, per President Rowe’s request, we have decided to share her response, considering the overall lack of transparency is our committee’s principle qualm with the administration -- as reflected in the Gates renaming decision. We hope that both President Rowe’s response and our response will bring clarity to petition signers about the state of progress regarding our collective demands. In highlighting our response, we draw attention to questions that we find integral and pertinent to the matter, yet have still gone unanswered by administration. In committing to our committee’s guiding principles of radical love and hope, we will continue our service onward and steadfast in the belief that William & Mary as an institution has the capacity for progressive change. 

As a committee, we hope you read both responses and formulate your own takeaways.