Promoting the name without a definition
How Reed College, a small private school right outside of Portland became the first sanctuary university.
By Brian Walker, Chloe Barnachea and Shuandy Herrera
“White is Right”
“Liberals need to kill themselves.”
“Trump, Make America Great Again.”
These were just a few messages that were graffitied onto walls of the library bathroom of Reed College during the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election. They were the voices of the minority; spreading hate through anonymous vandalism.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life to walk back to my dorm on this campus,” wrote Mingus Rae Zoller, a student at Reed, in a comment on Facebook. There needs to be more security or lighting on campus now because minorities lives are being threatened. This is terrifying.”
According to Kevin Myers, Reed director of communications, it was incidents like this that influenced groups to band together and draft a petition to become a sanctuary campus. The combined efforts of Myers, Reedies Against Racism, Allies Against Racism and the Latinx Student Union got enough signatures within a couple hours to get the attention of the university’s president, John Kroger. Reed was declared the first sanctuary campus that same day.
With the students’ demands being met the question remained, now what?What does being a sanctuary campus mean?
“It’s kind of a name without a definition,” said Myers.
According to Myers, to truly understand what sanctuary means to Reed one must understand the values of Reed.
“Reed has never cooperated with ICE, it is not in our policy to cooperate with ICE and we have never taken resident status into account when it comes to admission into Reed,” said Myers.
The campus of 1,400 students, in which almost half are minorities, is located in Portland, Oregon, a predominately liberal state. “We’re in a sanctuary city, in a sanctuary county, in a sanctuary state,” said Myers.
Kroger, the school’s president, was once attorney general and still holds very liberal views that would promote the sanctuary movement.
“Reed has never cooperated with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), it is not in our policy to cooperate with ICE and we have never taken resident status into account when it comes to admission into Reed,” said Myers.
“It seemed very organic, it happened so quickly.”
To Myers and many students and faculty Reed had been a sanctuary school long before the election. Prior to the vote, Reed had already began connecting students with resources for refugee resettlement and low-cost legal assistance.
“We value supporting each other,” said Santi Alston, Title IX Coordinator. “All students know they have the support from faculty and staff.”
No matter what definition of sanctuary one believes, Reed plans on using the title as a guiding light to welcome those who may feel threatened by the future. “We felt this is something we can believe in and stands for the values of Reed,” said Myers.
