The past 20 years of St. Thomas alumni are being represented in a letter to administration outlining demands relating to the Action Plan to Combat Racism.

“It is imperative the administration recognizes that this moment demands more to dismantle racism on campus than has been done in the past. As alums, we want to ensure that no future students encounter racism on the UST campus,” according to the letter.

The writers of the letter, a collective of alumni and current students, list out six specific demands for St. Thomas to address.

The actions listed are tangible, measurable requests that include asking for “healing circles,” putting race into the university’s commitment to diversity statement, using the campus alert system for hate crimes on campus, and creating a required course for all students to “examine the history of white supremacy,” according to the letter.

The Google form is currently posted on various social media, and the goal is to reach 1,000 alumni signatures.

Kori Redepenning, ‘02 alumni and CEO of Minnesota Alliance with Youth, authored the letter with the help of other alumni after becoming frustrated with the university’s administration following September 2019’s racist incident.

“It just felt like enough to me, so I started talking to folks I graduated with and then talking to other folks I knew who graduated from here,” Redepenning said.

Redepenning stressed that this was not just responding to the most recent incident, but to all of St. Thomas’ past.

“We were able to find articles pretty consistently for the last 20 years of incidents that occurred on campus and sort of similar responses by administration with very little change,” Redepenning said.

The group of alumni represented goes back to 1985, according to Redepenning.

Redepenning worked with other alumni in order to get the right representation and full spectrum of voices that were needed to fully capture the ideas for administration.

“I’m white, so my experience here at St. Thomas is significantly different than persons of color, and I think that what was alarming to me is that once some of us who are alums and some students got on a call together, how similar our stories were in what we saw and experienced on campus,” Redepenning said.

The goal of the letter, beyond reaching 1,000 signatures, is to reach as many alumni as possible and eventually reach administration.

“Our big goal is that we see change this academic year, so that we don’t see any more incoming classes experiencing this,” Redepenning said.

St. Thomas junior Tiaryn Daniels also helped write the letter, and described Redepenning as her “mentor” that she has worked with since eighth grade. Her decision to help write the letter was similar to Redepenning’s: not seeing change, especially after the incident this fall.

“I think we just like perpetuate this culture of constantly protecting the people who cause harm to others, and I think that’s something we internalize — that you need to protect the people that have hurt you,” Daniels said, reacting to the culture on campus at St. Thomas.

Daniels shares Redepenning’s vision of not having another class experience racist incidents on campus.

“I think the goal is to really get the ball rolling, because we want this type of culture ended for future classes,” Daniels said.

Abby Sliva can be reached at sliv7912@stthomas.edu.