与我们的过去接触的艰难工作

Drawn from 总统 金正日卡西迪’s remarks delivered on September 16, 2017, 在推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的校友/志愿者峰会上.

布林莫尔 College’s abiding work and core commitment is to sustain an educational community in which students study with rigor, 拥抱的复杂性, and pursue the excitement and challenge of discovery.

And this is the commitment we’re putting at the center of our engagement with 布林莫尔’s past.

For several years, a series of discussions has taken place ... 关于M. 凯里·托马斯饰演布林·莫尔的精神创始人, because of renewed awareness of racist and anti-Semitic statements and actions during her tenure as president. 去年春天学院 ... announced the formation of a broadly focused Working Group to address issues of exclusion  and resistance across 布林莫尔’s rich history.

National events kicked this discussion into high gear, [and in the late summer], I declared a 临时 moratorium on the use of her name to designate buildings and spaces on campus while we took up the question together in a full and 深思熟虑的 道路.

对于一些 ... 那个决定是不对的. It seemed like a capricious act of historical revisionism, a placating of loud voices in the passion of the moment.

但这 临时 moratorium is 不 a rash move, nor is it about intolerance or political correctness run amok. Quite the contrary: by declaring a 临时 moratorium while we assess the question, 我们已经采取了具体步骤来表明这一点 ... that the College rejects the racism and anti-Semitism that comprised part of the vision that shaped this institution. Sometimes remaining silent is 不 an option, because silence can be understood to speak volumes.

The 临时 moratorium does 不 end a controversy, 然后, but rather starts a conversation where we can do what 布林莫尔 does best: engage in a free, 诚实的, 严格的对话.

The 临时 moratorium does 不 end a controversy, 然后, but rather starts a conversation where we can do what 布林莫尔 does best: engage in a free, 诚实的, 严格的对话, 其中我们所有的成员都是多元化的, 全球社区可以彼此相遇, consider positions based on intellectual and ethical merit, and emerge with a set of solutions and actions that leave us better than we were before.

工作组将促进这一对话, which will culminate in a set of concrete recommendations.

During this process, we will ask a lot of our students ... 他们会向我们提出很多要求. We understand that if you’re going to challenge young adults to push boundaries, 批判性地分析问题, 追求自己的激情, 然后他们 不 要这么做 只有 在教室里. They’re going to question their campus community, and its history, and push for change. 

This is by no means a sign that they are intolerant, fragile, or dismissive of our history. To the contrary, this is a sign that they’re doing exactly what we hope and expect them to do.

... 我们任职时间最长的总统，玛莎·凯里·托马斯 ... 创建d the organizational and academic structures that still guide us today. A living argument for the necessity and value of a world-class women’s college, she persisted through the institutionalized sexism of three different graduate schools across two continents to earn her Ph.D., and she produced scholarship that remained highly regarded for nearly a century. She was a leader in the suffragette movement and an early advocate for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. 她为布林莫尔设定了最高标准.

... She also is distinctive because so few women helped to 创建 高等教育机构. 其他地方很早就开始教育女性, 甚至是七姐妹中的许多人, 是由人建立和引导的吗. 

... M. 凯莉•托马斯 is a towering figure at 布林莫尔 and beyond, and 不hing will or should change that. 但一个高大的身影投下了巨大的阴影, 现在是我们处理这个阴影的时候了, 完全和直率.

Alongside the record of her accomplishments sits a record of explicit racism and anti-Semitism, 言行一致. Deeply influenced by the scientific racism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she saw the world in eugenicist terms of superior and inferior races, and racialized nationalities and religions; and she wove that racism into her feminism. In her opening address for the 1916 academic year, she argued ... that “If the present intellectual supremacy of the white races is maintained, 我希望在未来的几个世纪里都是如此, I believe that it will be because they are the 只有 races that have seriously begun to educate their women.” 

She publicly fretted over the potential loss of America’s and 布林莫尔’s “intellectual heritage” from the mixing of what she called “inferior” races with the “superior.” ... She blocked the hiring of Jewish faculty and the admission of Jewish students. 她认为“毫无疑问”,” the “pure Negroes of Africa” had “never yet in the history of the world manifested any continuous mental activity,” and she worked against the admission of African American students.

How do we weigh the facets of who she was and what she represents? 我可以想象许多可能的反应, 选项, and outcomes that would enable us to honor the complexity of what M. 凯莉•托马斯 means to the diverse members of today’s 布林莫尔 community. And that’s what the Working Group will do: look at the issue from multiple perspectives, 参与社区活动, and consider 选项 for how to make the fullness of her legacy visible on campus moving forward ... a thorough, ethical process enriches us all, and produces outcomes we can respect.

I have faith in this process because it draws on the essence of what makes 布林莫尔 布林莫尔.

金正日卡西迪
总统