Our commitment and journey: becoming an anti-racist campus
A message from President Christian and the President’s Cabinet sent on June 30, 2020
To the SUNY New Paltz Community,
We have received the recent letter from alumni, students, faculty and staff, and others cataloguing incidents of racism and social injustice experienced over the years and all too recently at SUNY New Paltz. To undergo experiences of ongoing bias, embedded racism, and daily microaggressions not only undermines educational ideals. It insults, injures, and traumatizes those who absorb repeated assaults on mind, body, and spirit. It is painful to hear and thus we hurt for all who have been subjected to such experiences. We know that vicarious pain does not come close to the direct pain and humiliation of those targeted by racist behavior.
Hearing from you reaffirms our commitment with greater clarity and urgency to the work we still have to do to live up to our long-espoused values of equity, inclusion and social justice for students as we strive to become an actively anti-racist institution of higher education. We know people are tired, we know there is frustration and even distrust in dialogue without concrete tangible action. We recognize the sense of urgency felt by students who have just four years on our campus. We hear loud and clear the call for accountability and action to stop these experiences from continuing to harm current and future generations of our students.
