Open main menu

Changes

Campus controversies

2,122 bytes added, 11:00, September 26, 2021
no edit summary
{{Outdated}}
[[Category:History]]
This page lists titles and brief descriptions of the controversies that have torn this campus. If an event will be discussed in a dedicated page, please make the heading here a link to that page.
==2021==
===[[Wood House Party]]===
During the Covid restriction era of Spring 2021, 127 students were removed from campus after attending a party in [[Wood House]]. For more information refer to the [[Wood House Party]] wiki.
==2019==
=== WIFI (Williams Initiative for Israel) ===
In April of 2019, College Council voted against recognizing WIFI as an officially registered student organization, believing that the group may support Israeli statehood in a way that also supported human rights abuses and the occupation against Palestine. WIFI is the first club in over a decade that complied with all of the College Council bylaws for recognition but did not gain RSO status.
 
For more information, click [https://williamsrecord.com/2019/05/cc-rejects-williams-initiative-for-israel/ here].
 
=== The Green Love Controversy ===
In the days leading up to the start of spring semester, two professors (Kai Green '07 and Kimberly Love) canceled their courses and spent a semester on medical leave in order to protest the college's institutional "violent practices," "transphobia," and "anti-blackness."
 
For more information, click [https://williamsrecord.com/2019/02/professors-cancel-courses-cite-colleges-violent-practices-anti-blackness-and-transphobia/ here].
 
=== Affinity Housing ===
 
Recently, students have been advocating for living spaces of affinity around a common identity as a response to increasing feelings of "tokenization and isolation" that Williams' current housing options fail to address.
 
CARE Now (Coalition Against Racist Education Now) published a demand calling for the establishment of "affinity housing for Black students and all other marginalized groups" to create safe spaces, with tremendous support and backing from the Black Student Union. Arguments against this demand included the fear that affinity housing may promote further isolation and work against the idea of an integrated community.
 
In response to this series of events, Williams College has been a subject of conversation on many news networks and websites.
 
For more information, click [https://williamsrecord.com/2019/04/push-for-affinity-housing-builds/ here].
 
=== The Chicago Free Speech Statement Controversy ===
The Williams College administration has been grappling with how to adjudicate issues of free speech and expression, and there has been discussion and debate about adopting the principles of the free speech policy statement initially originating from the University of Chicago.
In response to a faculty petition on the Chicago Principles, a student and opposing faculty run counter-petition began to circulate around as well, leading President Maud Mandel to announce the formation of an ad hoc committee on inquiry and inclusion. For more information on this subject, please reference the following articles:
'''[https://williamsrecord.com/2018/12/on-the-chicago-statement-recognizing-nuance-and-encouraging-collaborative-conversations-around-expression-2/ "On the Chicago Statement: Recognizing nuance and encouraging collaborative conversations around expression" by the Williams Record Editorial Board, December 5, 2018''': ] [https://williamsrecord.com/20182019/1204/onstudents-thefaculty-chicagospar-statementover-recognizingfree-nuancespeech-and-encouraging-collaborative-conversations-around-expressionspeaker-2invitations/"Students, faculty spar over free speech, speaker invitations"]
'''"Students, faculty spar over free speech, speaker invitations" by Arrington Luck, April 10, 2019''': [https://williamsrecordthefeministwire.com/20192018/0411/studentsa-facultycollective-sparstudent-overresponse-freeto-speechthe-speakerchicago-invitationsstatement/"A Collective Student Response to the "Chicago Statement"]
==2006==
=== [[Private:Art Department Racial Slur Incident|Art Department Racial Slur Incident]] ===
A comment using the term "nigger" made by a [[studio art]] professor using the n word at a department meeting in Spring 2004 was the spark for a number of events of campus-wide publicity and importance that, together, are probably can rightly be called a scandal.
==2003==
20
edits