Vassar’s Race and Racism in Historical Collections Working Group held a workshop on Wednesday, Feb. 19 revisiting the Black Studies sit-in that took place in Main Building 55 years ago this past fall. The workshop was part of the Working Group’s mission to re-analyze and educate current students about the complex racial history of Vassar. The Working Group invited students to a crowded Class of ’51 Reading Room to explore the historical context of the sit-in and the reactions to it from the College community and those around the country. Students were given access to copies of numerous documents from the College’s historical archives, including the demands of the Student Afro-American Society (SAS), who organized the sit-in, as well as newspaper clippings covering the event.
In 1969, following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and in reaction to the racial intolerance at Vassar, a group of 34 Vassar students, all members of the SAS, entered Main Building with supplies of food, toiletries and sleeping materials. Their goals were to create a permanent Black Studies program at Vassar and to establish more Black student affinity spaces on campus, such as all-Black housing. According to Vassar’s website, at the time of the protest, Black students made up approximately two percent of the total student body, the curriculum almost entirely ignored or glossed over Black history and the College had only one full-time Black professor. Then-SAS president Claudia Lynn Thomas ’71 spoke extensively about how faculty and administration treated Black students: “I subsequently learned that another professor had responded to [a student’s] incident by stating that Black students were at Vassar to be an ‘educational experience’ for White students.” Prior to the sit-in, any commitments to improving the experience of Black students would therefore only be seen as an experiment, according to Thomas. This is what the SAS was up against when they decided to occupy Main Building and challenge Vassar’s racial discrimination. By the end of the protest’s third day, following much back and forth between students and administration, and significant national media coverage, the College agreed to meet most of their demands, namely instituting a permanent Black Studies program.
Students who attended the workshop about the sit-in learned of the racism present within the Vassar community at the time—many of the responses from administration and alumnae/i discredited the students protesting and were directly opposed to the cause they were fighting for. Some students who attended the workshop felt the fight of student protestors in the 1960s still resonate. Student Facilitator of Engaged Pluralism Em Friedman ’27 told The Miscellany News by email, “When we look at these historical documents, it’s hard not to see similarities between 1969 and 2025. It’s almost eerie knowing that it’s half a century later and student protestors are still fighting the same fight and receiving similar pushback.”
The workshop also gave students the opportunity to see the ways student activism existed on campus decades ago, especially administrators’ responses to it. Then-President of the College Alan Simpson said on the first morning of the sit-in: “I will not make any decisions under duress!” A student who attended the workshop and wished to remain anonymous commented, “I, along with many other students and organizers of the sit-in workshop, noticed that the ways in which Vassar’s administration deals with student protests has changed remarkably little, almost as if administrators were sharing a script across generations.” One of the workshop’s organizers expressed similar sentiments. They said during the workshop, “It’s like the administration hands down to other generations the language to use.”
Students connected the Main Building sit-in to the pro-Palestine protests that have occurred on campus since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023. After a student encampment in May 2024, the administration agreed to hear a student proposal for Vassar’s full divestment from military and surveillance companies. Last December, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees announced through the President’s Office their unanimous rejection of the student divestment plan. The anonymous student highlighted this, describing another similarity between today’s present protests and the sit-in: “Administrators should remember that their refusal to cooperate and work with student protesters in the past has served only to slow progress, and that what seems radical today will be common sense tomorrow.”
The workshop came as the new Trump administration intensified their challenges to higher education, specifically in their “Dear Colleague” letter, sent on Feb. 14. The letter threatened to withdraw federal funding from all academic institutions that do not follow the government’s expectations about eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). The exact definition of what constitutes DEI for academic institutions was not specified in the letter, leaving many school administrators confused, nervous and scrambling to make sure their institutions can provide welcoming and accepting spaces for minority students without losing federal support.
Director of Engaged Pluralism Kimberly Williams Brown wrote in an email to The Miscellany News, “We are waiting for additional guidance that may further explain the actions that will be mandated for colleges based on this Dear Colleague Letter and seeing what legal challenges may arise related to the legality and enforceability of the letter.” As per Williams Brown’s response, and the similarly critical responses of many in the academic world, it is clear that cultural affinity spaces, as well as academic departments like Black Studies, have an uncertain future, and one that could be determined in the coming months as legal challenges unfold on a state and federal level. To current Vassar students like Friedman, these political developments make workshops like the one held on Wednesday all the more important. Friedman wrote to The Miscellany News, “Particularly in the era of the Trump administration and the genocide in Gaza, it is vital that all Vassar students are informed on the history of this insitution so we can continue to hold Vassar accountable in ensuring the safety of all people.” They continued, “We must also acknowledge the irony in capitalizing off of a history of student protests while actively punishing them in the present.”