"Acting with vengeance against students is not a good look for a Jesuit institution that has already been raked over the coals for treating its faculty unjustly."

Dean Rodgers' actions have overstepped professional bounds and risk the integrity of the academic community (to say nothing of alumni relations). He, and administrators such as Kim Russell, have demonstrated time and again poor judgement that has negatively influenced Fordham University's image publicly and amongst alumni. It is unfair that students—who were well within their rights to enter an open building on campus—were both injured and now face punishment without proper adjudication as a result of their desire to speak to administration. Acting with vengeance against students is not a good look for a Jesuit institution that has already been raked over the coals for treating its faculty unjustly. This is the beginning of a vote of no confidence in administration by not just faculty, but also students and alumni.

--Louie Dean Valencia, Fordham alum, Lecturer at Harvard University

The petition protesting the initial, punitive treatment of accused students, which was sent to Fordham President Joseph McShane on May 1, now has over 1650 signatures (and you can still sign it). Many signers added passionate and powerful comments with their signatures. Those comments will be posted here, anonymously or attributed, depending on what the signer gave permission to do.

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The Fordham 14: Some of Fordham's Best

It is wonderful news that President McShane has reversed his position on the unionization of contingent faculty at Fordham because, he notes, it is "the right thing to do." In his announcement, he recognized that "organized labor has deep roots in Catholic social justice teachings." Social justice is one of the pillars in the university's mission and social justice is what motivated a group of students to rally and protest in support of those of their professors on April 27. These students are an extraordinary group who are in many ways the very best and most dedicated student-scholars that Fordham has nurtured. They are honors students who have undertaken and excelled in the most challenging intellectual paths we offer, and they are award winners whose writings have dazzled their professors. Above all, they are students who, through their actions, strove to embody the Jesuit ideal of "men and women for others." Their collective pursuit of ...

"My hope is that we admirers of the Jesuit ethos will not be disappointed in how the demonstrators are ultimately treated."

"I have always been so proud of my son's Fordham education and his steeping in Jesuit standards of intellectual rigor, personal integrity and social justice. Please don't betray those values by anything less than giving fair treatment to those students who were pursuing what they saw as fairness for others. My hope is that we admirers of the Jesuit ethos will not be disappointed in how the demonstrators are ultimately treated." Mary Killenberg Riley, parent of an alum The petition protesting the initial, punitive treatment of accused students, which was sent to Fordham President Joseph McShane on May 1, now has over 1650 signatures (and you can still sign it). Many signers added passionate and powerful comments with their signatures. Those comments will be posted here, anonymously or attributed, depending on what the signer gave permission to do.

Verdicts and Sanctions Announced

On Monday evening, the 14 accused students received letters from the administration officials who had held their hearings. These hearings consisted of one-on-one, closed door meetings with either the Dean of Students or his designated representative. Accused students were not permitted to bring faculty advocates, student supporters, or anyone else to accompany them. Supporters were kept outside the Student Life Offices; in some cases faculty members from barred from even entering the buildings where the hearings were taking place. Nor were students allowed any witnesses in these "hearings." Even so, some of them took as long as 90 minutes. Some but not all of the students have shared the letters they received from university officials announcing their verdicts and sanctions. It is unsurprising that these patently unfair proceedings--which are standard operating procedure described in Fordham's Student Handbook--seem to have resulted in "convictions" on all ...

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