The Time to Act is Now
Student Leaders Call for Support for Undocumented Students By Student Community of Progressive Empowerment (S.C.O.P.E.)
S.C.O.P.E.’s mission is to support and serve undocumented students. We work to advocate for prospective and current students such that an education is accessible to all.
On June 18, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s termination of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), finding that it was done in an arbitrary and capricious manner. In late July, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to scale down DACA, and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services issued guidance on implementing the policy. Amid these legal challenges to DACA, many college campuses across the nation stepped up to voice their support and solidarity with DACAmented students. For example, the University of Illinois leadership sent a mass email to it students, faculty and staff after the June 18 ruling stating, “DACA reflects our values and our land-grant mission to open our doors wide, provide a high-quality education for every deserving student and create the next-generation workforce that is essential to move America forward. We hope DACA will now be allowed to stand, and end the fears and uncertainty that our undocumented students have felt since the legal battle began. And we will continue to advocate for federal legislation expanding their rights through the Dream Act, which would provide an opportunity to become citizens of what for many is the only country they have ever known.” The University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin issued similar statements. Ohio State was silent. Neither the former president nor other university leaders published a renewed profession of allyship, apart from a “retweet” from the former president on Twitter. This simply does not suffice, especially when individual departments/colleges and administrative units across the university are sending out weekly and sometimes multiple email updates on the matters of equality, equity and race at The Ohio State University. The Student Community of Progressive Empower-
ment (S.C.O.P.E.) at The Ohio State University sent a letter to university leaders in August, calling for concrete action to remove barriers and provide meaningful support for DACAmented and undocumented students. This group is the first student organization on a college campus in the State of Ohio to be dedicated to undocumented college students S.C.O.P.E. was created with the goal to provide the needed guidance for our students on a college campus. As the first and only organization of its kind, across the entire state of Ohio, there have been successes and challenges along the way. From hosting successful fundraisers at the beginning of the academic year to hosting bi-monthly meetings throughout the Spring and Autumn semesters, S.C.O.P.E. has had the opportunity to present at two separate conferences, one locally, at the Latino Education Summit at Kent State University and one in California at the conference of the American Association for Hispanics in Higher Ed (AAHHE). In our letter to university leadership, we outline a series of instances where the university has failed DACAmented and other undocumented students, and we list specific actions the university should take in order to remedy these failures. We advocate for staff training, emergency financial support, health insurance and inclusion of DACAmented and undocumented students in university nondiscrimination policies. The university has responded to our letter. Provost Bruce McPheron and Vice President for Student Life Melissa Shivers are commissioning a new Undocumented Student Support Team to explore university policies and provide recommendations to university leadership. We are encouraged by this response, but we know also know that the road to inclusion is a long and complicated one. We invite allyship and encourage anyone who wants to join this effort to start with allyship. Visit https://guides.osu.edu/DACA for more information. 23
