Dear members of the Gettysburg College community,
I am sure you are aware of the horrifying events that occurred at the University of Virginia and in Charlottesville this past weekend. White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and members of the Ku Klux Klan staged demonstrations in Charlottesville and marched with torches on the UVA campus, inciting violence and spewing hate through their acts of domestic terrorism.
I am personally disgusted by this ugly display of racism, as I am sure you are; my heart goes out to the victims of this violence, to those injured, and to those who lost loved ones. These events are an assault on all of us and on the institutional values that we strive mightily to live up to at Gettysburg College.
Here in Gettysburg we have a special responsibility to take up Abraham Lincoln’s call to dedicate ourselves to the proposition that all are created equal, to protect the rights of others, and to stand together against oppression, bigotry, and hate.
As we gather for a new year, let us, as a community, reaffirm our College’s values—our belief in the worth and dignity of all people and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive learning environment. And let every one of us, as individuals, pledge to do our best to embrace those values as we interact with one another in our community here in Gettysburg and beyond.
Sincerely,
Janet Morgan Riggs ’77
President