11/18/2016
Dear Students,
As you may have seen or heard, students have assembled on the steps of Pennsylvania Hall to raise awareness of the effects of hate speech, bias incidents, and sexual assault on campus recently. This demonstration has been going on since Thursday afternoon.
The Senate Executive Board unequivocally supports the actions of our peers. We think that free speech and the right to peacefully assemble are essential American and democratic ideals. The purpose of a Liberal Arts education is to create informed, worldly thinkers, and this protest is a prime example of the success of those ideals. While we support free speech, the Senate Executive Board in no way sees hate speech as an acceptable form of expression, and we condemn all forms of it. We believe that bias incidents and sexual assaults happen all too often on campus and need to be addressed. We are fully committed to supporting the protestors, continuing the discussion, and fostering meaningful change on Gettysburg’s Campus.
We encourage all members of the Student Body to support their peers in the fight to end injustice and hate. Part of living in a democratic society is disagreeing with others. It is, in fact, a core value of democracy and Liberal Arts education as a whole. While our political and ideological beliefs may not all be the same, we can all agree that hate has no place in our community.
If you wish, please feel free to join our peers at the steps of Pennsylvania Hall. If you wish to protest personally or in a more private way, that is just as well. However, we encourage every single student (and faculty member/administrator) on campus to engage in meaningful and civil dialogue.
We have the power to shape our small part of a very large world, and to not do so would be irresponsible.
In Solidarity,
The Senate Executive Board
Amelia Johnson Smith, Taylor Beck, Luke Frigon, Brooke Gutschick, Niko Papoutsis, Christina Noto