Dear Colorado College Administration,
In response to the current genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli government, funded by the US, and CC’s complicity in such events through its financial investments, the Colorado College Liberation Zone and People’s University has been established by conscientious students, faculty, and Colorado Springs community members to stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza as well as prompt CC to meet the CC Liberation Zone’s priorities and demands…
- From now onwards, Colorado College will be completely transparent about its investments and endowments to the student body.
- At least 3/4 of the Colorado College Board of Trustees, including the chair, incoming president, current president, and deans meet with our delegated representatives in person on our terms. by the end of the school year to hear what ways they plan to ensure an ongoing commitment to meeting our demands.
- Colorado College permanently cancel the Summer Blocks in Israel
- Colorado College will immediately end investment and relationships with all arms companies
- Colorado College ends all short and long term contracts with companies profiting from Israeli Apartheid and Occupation, such as food, technology, etc.
- Colorado College ensure the same protections and resources for students affected by the ongoing genocide in Gaza
- No members, whether alumni, faculty, staff, student, or community member participating in the Liberation Zone in any capacity will face retaliation for their participation.
Standing in Solidarity with Palestine, today the Colorado College Liberation Zone aims to establish a space for and by the people of this community, rather than the corporate structure of the university. We refuse to let our education, labor, and time be conscripted into complicity with the genocide of Palestinians. As beneficiaries of the endowment, we refuse to acquiesce to the laundering of settler colonial riches in the form of student and faculty wages, aid, scholarships, and grants. Our educational approach will provide accessible resources about the colonization of Palestine, and how it has led to today, the 208th day of ongoing genocide in Gaza. We stand in solidarity with Palestine, and student organizations, individual students, alum, faculty, and staff that stand in solidarity with Palestine as well-SJP, JVP, JOOT, and those who have faced disciplinary action and surveillance for their expression. We also extend solidarity to the group of over 100 faculty members who have condemned the college’s blatant repression of student demonstrators and mishandling resources for students, pointedly avoiding “courageous conversations.’
Divestment from Israel directly aligns with Colorado College’s claim of commitment to Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The College’s ADEI initiative purports to seek a “justice-centered Colorado College community in which all members feel a sense of belonging and where we continuously uproot oppression wherever it exists.” These statements also outline an institution which aims to be “stewards” of antiracism. The silence from the College, and specifically the ADEI team, about the atrocities committed in Gaza, has been deafening. Not only is ongoing investment in Israel a blatant disregard for the student and campus community and our desires for our institution, but this explicitly goes against the university’s own claims and policies. Funding genocide is not antiracist. Disciplining and surveilling student demonstrators, many of whom are black, brown, and international, is not antiracist. Stewarding anti-racism and uprooting oppression means cutting ties with an ethnostate which is built upon the mass displacement, killing, and erasure of indigenous people. We stand against all forms and systems oppression, including antisemitism, which is crucial to resisting white supremacy.
As Colorado College enters its 150th anniversary celebrations, we find it important to reflect on Colorado College’s role in the colonization of this region, and how this dispossession and exclusion is ongoing. What does 150 years of Colorado College mean to the Ute, Lipian, Apache, and Arapahoe people whose unseated lands we stand on today? What do we have to celebrate during the celebrations the administration has posed? Today, we seek something to celebrate. In this encampment we invite you to imagine an educational experience which does not profit from death and revolve around productivity, but safeguards life, community, and justice.
Sincerely,
The Colorado College Liberation Zone.