Students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges held a “Walk Out” Tuesday to stand in solidarity with people they feel have been targeted by hateful rhetoric and policies.
The 200 or so demonstrators at the Geneva campus called on the colleges to stand with colleges and universities across the country who are actively investigating ways through which their respective campuses can be made into what are being called sanctuary spaces, places where immigration authorities would not be able to remove undocumented immigrants.
Sophie Richards was one of the organizers of the protest. She hopes this effort can involve other parts of that community.
"We hope that this effort expands into the Geneva community because there are a lot of undocumented folks in the Geneva community and at large, like around this area, which we hope to make a safe place for everyone.”
Hobart and William Smith released a statement which says the colleges value the privacy and security of their students and do not track the status of students who may be undocumented.
President Mark Gearan is among the 300 college and university presidents across the nation to sign a statement calling for the United States to uphold and expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, offering to meet with U.S. leaders on this issue that is both “a moral imperative and a national necessity.”
In his message to the campus community two weeks ago, Gearan called on the HWS community to affirm the Colleges’ commitment to diversity and its heritage of inclusion.”
