Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 1

              on UC Front Lawn
The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 1
Friday, September 8, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Simon meets with author of Trump petition
By KLAUDIA JAZWINSKA
Managing Editor
Lehigh responds to
Annie Henry/B&W Staff
Students dance along to the music at the Blackbear concert
sponsored by University Productions on Aug. 31, on the front lawn.
The concert offered free admission and included a free barbeque and
open bar for students over 21 years old.
Kelly McCoy, ’17, an alumna who
started the viral Change.org petition
to rescind President Donald Trump’s
honorary Lehigh degree, met with
President John Simon, General
Counsel Frank Roth and two pro-fessors
for over an hour on Aug. 25
to discuss Lehigh’s response to the
issue.
The petition, which outlined the
ways in which Trump’s speech and
actions violated Lehigh’s Principles
of Our Equitable Community, sur-passed
30,000 signatures in just over
a week and attracted widespread
media attention.
Roth will present his notes from
their discussion with McCoy at the
next board of trustees meeting, which
is scheduled for Oct. 25.
McCoy – who, full disclosure, is a
former design editor for The Brown
and White – had suggested the meet-ing
in her first email to Simon and
used it as a platform to explain her
support for the revocation of Trump’s
degree in greater detail.
Also present at the meeting were
professors Rick Weisman and Ziad
Munson, who had reached out to
McCoy to lend their support as senior
members of the Lehigh faculty who
have been involved in similar efforts.
Weisman, a professor emeri-tus
of engineering, had written a
letter nearly two years ago asking
the board of trustees to reconsid-er
whether Trump’s actions aligned
with the values of the university. He
later worked with Munson and other
faculty members to start a petition
that was limited to Lehigh affiliates,
which was delivered to Simon after
collecting nearly 1,000 signatures.
Though the board did not respond
to that initial petition, Weisman and
Munson felt a responsibility to use
their positions at the university to
continue advocating for the cause.
Munson, a sociology professor, said
he felt a duty to support McCoy’s
efforts because he is a tenured fac-ulty
member who has more security
in expressing his point of view than
other members of the campus com-munity
might.
“There’s a lot of people who are ret-icent
to speak out about this,” he said.
“It is not a coincidence that the two
faculty members who went to this
meeting were white men with ten-ure.
In discussions with other faculty,
there were tenured faculty members
who were not white men who did not
feel like it was safe enough on this
campus to be talking about these
kinds of issues.”
Munson said this speaks to the
crossroads the university communi-ty
is facing. The decision about the
Trump petition, in his view, will be
an important symbolic indication of
the direction Lehigh’s leadership is
choosing to go when it comes to racial
By EMILY WARD
Editor in Chief
President John Simon sent an
email to the Lehigh community Sept.
6 denouncing the Trump administra-tion’s
repeal of DACA, or the Deferred
Action of Childhood Arrivals pro-gram.
“We are extremely dismayed that
these issues will weigh on students
here at Lehigh and will detract from
what should be an extraordinary
period in their young lives,” Simon
wrote.
DACA was enacted by President
Obama in 2012. Under the program,
eligible minors who illegally immi-grated
to the U.S. were protected
from deportation and could receive
a two-year, renewable work permit.
Since Lehigh does not require stu-dents
to disclose their immigration or
citizenship statuses, Simon said the
university does not know the exact
number of students impacted by the
DACA repeal.
Julio Martinez, ’21, is one of the
affected students. Born in Mexico, he
immigrated to the U.S. with his par-ents
at 13 months old and has lived
in Selma, North Carolina, ever since.
In his 18 years, he’s never returned
to Mexico.
“A lot of people think that I think
of Mexico as my home, but that’s
not true at all,” Martinez said. “Ever
since President Trump was elected,
(this repeal) was one of his promises,
so I think we all knew it was coming
at some point. I think it’s an unfortu-nate
decision because it robs a lot of
young Americans from opportunities
just because they weren’t born in this
country.”
In his statement, Simon acknowl-edged
the emotional toll this leg-islation
can have on students, and
Martinez said the uncertainty of
his future can be overwhelming. He
planned to apply for jobs in the U.S.
or receive his master’s degree but
said “it’s all up in the air now.”
Simon ensured that the univer-sity
will contact members of the
Pennsylvania congressional delega-tion
to voice its support for immi-grants
in the DACA program and
urge legislators to reverse the deci-sion.
“I truly appreciate that message
from the president of the university
because it lets me know that I’m wel-come
here, and I’ll find the support I
need here,” Martinez said.
The Cultural Greek Council is
organizing a peaceful march called
“Stand with the Dreamers” starting
at the UC flagpole Sept. 7 from 4-6
p.m.
See PETITION Page 3
DACA repeal Blackbear performs