Announcements

Since our June 25 message, 1.5 million new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the United States, with the confirmed case count soaring from 2.4 million on June 25 to 3.9 million on July 22. Against this backdrop and as the pandemic continues to progress, the University’s planning has evolved on several fronts.

John Lewis was the truest of American heroes. He lived a life of the utmost courage, standing up to Jim Crow and countless assaults on the inalienable rights of Black Americans. He fought tirelessly for civil rights and social justice for all, and became the conscience of the United States Congress. It was a personal honor to know him, and present him with an honorary degree from Penn. When you were with him, you knew you were in the presence of greatness. What a glorious life he lived, and how blessed we are as a country by the sacrifices he made and the positive change he brought about.

International students and scholars have been an integral part of the University of Pennsylvania from its earliest days. They are treasured members of our community who contribute to the diversity, vibrancy and intellectual excellence of Penn in countless important ways. 

We are today announcing that a statue of George Whitefield that was erected in the Quad in the early twentieth-century will be removed from our campus. We make this change after careful consideration of what it means for our campus community, both now and into the future. The case for removing Whitefield is overwhelmingly strong. He was a well-known evangelical preacher in the mid-eighteenth century, who notably led a successful campaign to allow slavery in Georgia. This is undeniably one of Whitefield’s principal legacies.

The University’s plans for the fall semester reflect the communal responsibility to preserve the shared health and safety of the community, while sustaining our commitments to teaching, learning, research, and service.

The United States is at a moment of national reckoning, confronting a long history of racist policies and practices that have perpetuated heinous injustices and have prevented our nation from achieving the ideals of justice, freedom, and equality we proclaim to the world.

We are deeply troubled by the Administration’s recent moves to restrict entry of certain international students and scholars into the United States. This is a major setback not only for higher education, but for our country as a whole. We need to welcome the widest range of individuals to our shores. For almost two centuries, we have unequivocally welcomed an impressive array of international students and scholars to Penn. It is simply a fact that global engagement is beneficial to our Commonwealth and nation, and certainly to our University.

We are enormously pleased that the Supreme Court today has preserved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a program that we have long supported and consistently advocated for. DACA students have had great success at Penn and have gone on to make invaluable contributions to our community and nation. We are proud to have them as students and alumni, and to support their aspirations to share in the American Dream. I am so pleased that this decision will relieve them of the burden of doubt that they have been forced to carry for the past few years.

This Juneteenth, when our country is reckoning with the racism and discrimination that permeated the history of our country and universities for centuries, we reflect on what we can do to dismantle systemic and structural barriers to equality.  

The Supreme Court decision is a step toward equity and justice for all LGBTQ people and the community.