December 5, 2014
President McCartney ends email about racial injustice with “all lives matter,” apologizes in follow-up email
On December 5th, following grand Jury decisions in Missouri and New York not to indict officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and in the wake of heightened on-campus discussion of police brutality and institutional racism, President McCartney sent an email to the community. The email encouraged unity and community building, and invited students to use the Sunday Christmas Vespers at JMG as a space to reflect, along with a vigil on Chapin Lawn scheduled for the coming Monday. However, the president’s ending of the email with the phrase “all lives matter,” sparked frustration among groups of students of color who felt the president did not understand the depths of their pain and was not committed enough to combating racism on campus.
The email here
[Last updated on October 20, 2018]