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Dear Members of the Sarah Lawrence Community,
Yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn 50 years of precedent in Roe v. Wade dealt a striking blow to equitable access to women’s reproductive health in the U.S. It is stunningly difficult to comprehend the deliberate unraveling of certain long-established freedoms presently taking place in America.
Our location in New York, a state with a clear position on abortion rights and protections for women’s health, means that those of us here will not experience personally and directly the ramifications of the Court’s decision, and I want to assure you that the College will continue to support, educate, and care for its students in the areas of health and wellness, including providing access to reproductive health care. This, however, is of little consolation to a student body and alumni community dispersed so widely across a nation now further divided.
As I have pondered what (and even whether) to write to you at this moment, I was reminded of the passionate and powerful remarks at Commencement this year by transgender rights advocate Jennifer Finney Boylan, which I encourage you to watch. Jenny said, in part:
"...when we face injustice, we have to prevail. And make no mistake, to greet the world with love doesn’t mean that you sit around with a dopey smile on your face while the world burns around you. For love to prevail it is necessary to greet the world with fierceness, to push back against injustice with both relentlessness and joy, wisdom and ferocity. Those who would turn back the clock to a time when women were denied the right to control their own bodies, to a time when LGBTQ people had to live in the shadows, to a time when people of color could be denied the right to vote—these people need to understand that they will have a fight on their hands—but that those of us engaged in this work are motivated not by fear but hope, not by intolerance but justice, not by hate, but love."
We as a college have a history of tackling difficult topics. Though we are not together on campus right now, we are hard at work putting together the programming for our theme for the coming academic year, History Matters, including on reproductive health care. I look forward to sharing that work with you in the coming weeks.
Yours,
Cristle Collins Judd
President
president@sarahlawrence.edu