Take Action LC

Email Template

Sending emails is one of the best and most straightforward ways to demand accountability from Lewis & Clark's administration. If you're not sure what to write, the template below provides a good starting point. If you feel so inclined, we encourage you to add a couple lines of your own.

Clicking the "Send Email" button will automatically open an email client and paste in the template text to the following recipients:

President Wim Wiewel, president@lclark.edu
Dean Bruce Suttmeier, casdean@lclark.edu
Dean of Students, VP for Student Life Robin Holmes-Sullivan, rholmes-sullivan@lclark.edu

More potential recipients can be found on the Voice Your Concerns page.

Hello,

I am writing to express my concerns with Lewis and Clark College’s continued mishandling of sexual assault and harassment cases. For too long, Lewis and Clark has prioritized silencing students to protect its own reputation over creating a community free from violence.

Hundreds of current students and LC alumni have shared their own stories of dealing with sexual assault, harassment, and abuse at the hands of LC community members. Despite their bravery in recounting these stories, LC’s only response has been to gaslight its community members by releasing a statement saying it “supports survivors” when that is clearly not the case.

Through the Student Life office and the Student Health Center, LC has engaged in a pattern of abusing and silencing students, creating an unsupportive and hostile environment that actively prevents survivors from seeking or receiving justice and healing.

Students are often dissuaded from going through with filing Title IX cases, and those who do file cases are repeatedly re-traumatized by having to recount their story, being asked irrelevant, inappropriate, and invasive questions, and being forced to confront their abusers during the trials. Additionally, there is a pattern of students reporting abuse to administration staff and having their cries for help ignored. Many students have also shared stories of no-contact orders being violated through the administration’s class schedule and dorm assignments, seriously endangering student’s physical safety and emotional well-being.

Furthermore, LC’s superficial version of “restorative justice” further victimizes survivors. The process of abusers writing reflective essays rather than facing real consequences for their actions minimizes the harm that they have caused, and fails to give the victim any closure or healing.

Lewis and Clark claims that it is an accepting school that champions diversity and acceptance, but this is not true. The school’s culture of rampant abuse is well-known among the student body and many perpetrators have multiple victims and continue to hurt people because they know that they will not face any repercussions.

Take Action LC (TALC) demands that Lewis and Clark College adopt a trauma informed survivor-centered approach in dealing with sexual assault, Title IX cases, and medical assault/malpractice. Find more information about the movement at takeactionlc.com.

TALC supports and reiterates the demands of the petition sent to Lewis and Clark College on July 17th from alumni, current students, and Davis UWC scholars. Read the petition here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAkczFI6Fvbv5Jzda1ImK4ozDDjNPko4kcUySDQ-mf-2m48w/viewform

I demand that Lewis and Clark take these six actionable steps to meet the demands of Take Action LC (TALC):
  1. Adopt a survivor-centered transformative justice system;
  2. Perpetrators of sexual assault must commit to an accountability program;
  3. Open investigations of misconduct, malpractice and abuse in the health center;
  4. Provide expansive, accessible and free trauma-informed therapy for students;
  5. Hold Student Rights and Responsibilities and Campus Living accountable for their negligence and lack of transparency; 
  6. Provide appropriate training and ongoing support for RAs and ADs.
Sincerely,