Dear President McShane,

For too long, Fordham University students have felt their grievances with various aspects of student life are ignored or swept under the rug. A recent string of articles — featured in publications ranging from The Ram, Fordham Daily, and USA Today — has shown that students are frustrated with many of the current policies facing the university. The overwhelming student response make the widespread nature of these grievances clear.

The complaints cover a lot of ground. The Office of Student Leadership and Community Development (OSLCD) seems to impede students more than it empowers them. The Office of Residential Life instills a climate of fear and distrust in its employees. Fordham administrators seem more interested in controlling students than listening to them. Even students in United Student Government (USG) and Campus Activities Board (CAB), arguably the two student organizations with the most power and access to sway university opinion and policy, complain that Fordham often acts more as a road block than as a spring board.

Formal complaints to Human Resources from Residential Life employees appear to have resulted in no change. USG’s repeated attempts to loosen Fordham’s free speech policies have failed. Countless student initiatives have been suffocated in their cribs by an overbearing university administration.

The unifying thread of these complaints is actually quite simple: Fordham is not taking students' complaints seriously.

We demand:

1. The establishment of the University grounds as a Free Speech Zone.

2. The creation of a formal structure (that falls outside of the Residential Life hierarchy) for Resident Assistants (RAs) to file workplace complaints/concerns.

3. The formation of a task force comprised of elected student representatives and administrators to tackle the free speech and expression issues Fordham currently faces.

We are proud to be Rams, and for that reason we cannot stand idly by. For that reason, we will be withholding our donation to Fordham University until the administration makes clear its intentions to work honestly and seriously with students toward drafting and enacting much-needed reform.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned