NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n recent days, a fervid swarm of student activists has overtaken Connecticut College. The students have not only attempted to seize the moral high ground, but have also actually seized the Fanning academic building, where they have barricaded themselves since Sunday night.
The debacle began on February 7 when Rodmon King, Connecticut College’s dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion, resigned in protest. His resignation was prompted by school president Katherine Bergeron’s plan to host a fundraising event at the Everglades Club in Florida. King cited the club’s history of anti-black and antisemitic discrimination. (The club denies present wrongdoing, but has in the past drawn scrutiny for rejecting applications from Jewish members and for denying entry to black guests, such as Sammy Davis Jr.)
On the day he resigned, King penned a letter to Connecticut College’s Board of Trustees outlining fresh allegations of a hostile work environment within the administration. “I have witnessed President Bergeron yell at, denigrate, talk over, and silence my colleagues during cabinet meetings,” he alleged.
The students occupying the Fanning academic building — which houses multiple classrooms as well as President Bergeron’s office — intend on continuing their occupation until a list of demands, offered by the student organization Student Voices for Equity (SVE), are met.
Although these students were initially protesting Bergeron’s problematic leadership and behavior, their demands soon expanded to encompass conventional left-wing causes.
In addition to calling for the immediate resignation of the president, SVE is demanding more funding for the Division of Institutional Equity and Inclusion (DIEI) and an immediate focus on hiring more BIPOC faculty and staff in all offices, as well as mandatory sensitivity, mediation, and equity training. SVE is also advocating additional resources to support BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, undocumented, international, first-gen, disabled, and low-income students. Furthermore, it is proposing the establishment of SVE as a permanent student representative body to effectively communicate institutional equity and inclusion needs.
On March 1, Bergeron responded to some of the protesters’ demands by agreeing to review the DIEI budget and “ensure that the division is properly staffed and supported.” She also promised to restructure student emergency funding to better meet students’ supposed needs, provide more support for affinity groups and other DIEI organizations, and make “immediate repairs” to the Race and Ethnicity Programs building (“Unity House”). In addition, she stated, the “Board of Trustees and I are prepared to make significant additional investments in our DIEI division, programs, and practices.”
Responding to the student occupation of Fanning Hall, President Bergeron wrote in an email, “The College supports students’ right to peaceful protest” — only after the students successfully prevented campus safety officers from entering the building. Ann Schenk, the dean of Juniors, Seniors, and Transfer Students, stated in another email, “I am immensely proud of the students at Connecticut College, and I see in all of you a commitment to your education, to justice and equity, and to your community.” The administration also decided to continue paying student tour guides refusing to do their jobs because of the protest.
Support for the protesters from Connecticut College’s faculty has been more forthcoming, with 162 faculty (an overwhelming majority) signing a letter calling for the removal of the school president, either immediately or at the end of her term (in 16 months). Many professors have moved their classes virtually to Zoom, to accommodate the student protesters. Others have canceled classes entirely. “I can’t help but get passionate about it as well,” history professor Taylor Desloge said at a faculty rally in support of the student protesters. “I think this is an educational experience for you guys.”
Shaking Crab, a restaurant and bar in New London (where Connecticut College is located), also supported the student protesters by donating a dinner to the Fanning Hall occupiers and by changing its “Valentine’s Week Escape College Night” to “We Are One Diversity College Club Night.”
Despite the numerous concessions given by the administration, the protesting students remain unsatisfied and plan to continue their occupation of Fanning Hall until all of their demands are met. The administration and impassioned students’ inability to reach a resolution largely comes down to Bergeron’s reluctance to resign her post, and to the tenuous connection between DIEI funding and other reform demands and Bergeron’s scheduled fundraiser with the Everglades Club, which began the controversy.
Indeed, students have now found other reasons to critique the college that have even less to do with the Everglades Club fundraiser. An article published in the College Voice, one of the school’s publications, criticized the college’s decision to “schedule a fundraising event in Florida against the backdrop of its recent history of harmful political rhetoric and the ‘Don’t Say Woke’ bill.” Aside from being unrelated, this critique has a major factual error: There is no such legislation as the ‘Don’t Say Woke’ bill. This appears to be a conflation of two separate bills passed in Florida: the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop W.O.K.E. Act), and the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, widely and deceptively labeled the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” The same article also criticized Connecticut College’s diversity, equity, and shared governance statement, claiming that the phrase “women as well as men” was not inclusive.
President Bergeron believes she made a mistake by associating the school with what she has since described as “a club in Florida that has been associated with discriminatory policies and practices.” But most of the demands from SVE and other students have nothing to do with that. They have, instead, used the controversy as an opportunity to push for the radical woke reforms they have always supported.
The ongoing occupation of Fanning Hall at Connecticut College is a troubling sign that the administration has lost its grip on the institution. There were allegations of egregious behavior by some students — including reports of reckless driving on sidewalks and lawns, as well as pulling of fire alarms — on the first night of the occupation. That the college has been unwilling to restore normal academic life is indicative of the power an emboldened and frenetic student mob holds over the academic institution. Based on what we’ve seen thus far, we shouldn’t expect that to change — even once the students have left the building.