(JTA) — Students from the Amherst College chapter of Hillel joined students from over 50 campus groups in a coalition demanding changes to create a more “inclusive environment” on campus.
“Amherst Uprising” is one of a spate of collectives on campuses across the country seeking to address what members see as campus environments hostile to minorities.
The manifesto posted last week demands an apology from the elite college in Amherst, Massachusetts, and from its president, Carolyn “Biddy” Martin, for an “institutional legacy” of a number of bigotries, among them anti-Semitism.
The statement also seeks the disciplining and “extensive training for racial and cultural competency” of students behind posters on campus declaring “All Lives Matters” and “in memoriam of the true victim of the Missouri Protests: Free Speech.”
“All Lives Matter” is a slogan that has emerged as a retort to the “Black Lives Matter” movement that started as a response to the killing of blacks by law enforcement. The University of Missouri has been the scene in recent weeks of tensions arising from racist online harassment of blacks and racist graffiti, as well as a counter-movement that has sought to silence some media coverage of its protests. The school’s president and chancellor have resigned.
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