#BlackLivesMatter

We, the undersigned, are members of the Fontaine Society, a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania for PhD students of color and/or from historically unrepresented groups in our fields in academia.

As students of color, first generation college goers, queer, and/or historically marginalized people in the academy, we recognize that systemically condoned racial violence against Black lives around the country is expressly related to our own histories, our individual efforts to gain a seat at the table, and our collective striving to find greater representation and voice in our professional communities. Furthermore, our professional endeavors must go hand in hand with greater efforts to end injustices both in our workplaces and in our communities.

We recognize that we enjoy many privileges -- earning the highest degree in our fields of research, at an institution with rich resources -- but we are not blind or silent to racism, police violence, and institutionally sanctioned discrimination in our university, in our city of Philadelphia, and around the country.

We stand in solidarity with groups at the University of Pennsylvania, including Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and Students Confronting Racism and White Privilege (SCRWP), and protesters around the country and the world who are demanding

·       the indictment of police officers and officials responsible for the deaths of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY, and many other Black men and women in the country;

·        the need for transparency with regards to profiling and police practices in our communities;

·        the end to the criminalization of Black and Brown young people and the school-to-prison pipeline;

·        greater diversity among tenured faculty in our departments and at senior levels of the University's administration;

·        and the economic accountability of the University to its neighbors in West Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia.

We stand with the collective calls for our workplaces, communities, and institutions to recognize immediately that Black Lives Matter.

Signed,