First of all, if people are going to discuss these demands here, let’s use the actual text of the demands - not a few carefully chosen quotes from a writer with an agenda.
Second, this has caused something of a stir on campus, and I’ve got too much work to get sucked into a long debate right now, so I’m going to say my piece and stay offline for a while.
While some demands are being made by every group in the coalition, others are being made by a specific organization. I would imagine these are ideas that didn’t get buy-in from every group, so it makes sense that these may go further at times - for better or worse.
As a result, some of the demands on this list are deeply impractical, due to the way higher education and our administration are set up - stuff like creating several new majors in areas where student demand appears limited, or splitting existing departments into 4-5 whose work overlaps. Others would put the university at risk legally (for instance, if opt-in black student housing is less well-maintained than other dorms, even for innocuous reasons). The administration isn’t going to bypass its normal decision-making process, or expose itself to legal action. They also happen to be pinching pennies right now. In short, these demands will mostly go nowhere.
Other demands on this list are responses to serious issues that the administration could solve with a modicum of time, effort, and money. I can’t speak to the experience of Black/Latinx/Arab/Asian students on campus, but it seems like these would change that experience in positive and meaningful ways.
As for the idea of a 4-page laundry list of demands, it may or may not be the best way to effect change. I don’t know what goes on inside President Zimmer’s head, so I can’t tell you that.
Finally, these are largely student-oriented demands, and if members of the neighboring communities had been a part of the drafting process, this list might include more - or different - proposals.
I’m not going to type up a 4-page response detailing my views on every demand, but I urge anyone commenting on this to keep the above in mind. Please avoid the less-enlightened CC approach - namely, quoting a few extreme demands as an excuse to dismiss the entire list, leaving out necessary context, and hurling accusations of racism and reverse racism back and forth. Hopefully, steering clear of these tactics will lead to a more productive conversation.