We alumni from the class of 2004 write with gratitude in response to Hwapyung Song’s “The Privilege of Impersonal Politics,” published on November 16, 2024. Song describes the impact of recent campus neutrality policies as a suffocating silence, one that is “poison to the student body.” We know the hard truth underneath Song’s experiences. Silence and neutrality empower the stranger shouting the homophobic slur, never the student wearing the pink backpack with pride flag straps. Hwapyung, with the benefit of 20 years’ perspective and experience, let us reassure you: the political is always personal. It betrays our shared education to pretend otherwise.
We remember the significant political moments of our time at Andover. They often felt intensely personal. During our junior year, the Supreme Court decided a presidential election for the first time in modern history. The first day of classes our lower year was September 11, 2001. Later we watched as the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. At times it felt like history was on our doorstep. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested on our campus (the Phillipian’s coverage didn’t bother to redact their “F-slurs”). We stood on the steps of the Supreme Judicial Court as Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to legalize marriage equality. For better and for worse, these events shaped us and the world we live in.
Now we stand at a perilous moment in our nation’s history: democratic norms and the institutions of government are under attack from within. Once again we confront the personal nature of politics and the need for uncomfortable vocal dissent. Each day under the Trump administration presents the same question in hideous repetition: who else will the American people allow their government to victimize? Trans kids? Federal workers? Immigrants? Protestors? Veterans? Andover has always asked its students to reconcile American power with American ideals. This administration knows only a brutal form of power. We have a word for neutrality in the face of state-sponsored intimidation: cowardice.
We don’t need to look far to understand that Andover is anything but neutral in the face of rampant injustice. Andover’s purpose is to prepare students for “lives characterized by learning and understanding, responsibility and freedom.” Our alma mater reminds us that our collective freedom “requires that citizens act against intolerance and injustice and build communities conducive to human flourishing.”
Andover is also not partisan. It produces leftist organizers and conservative businesspeople alike. But the current administration is not conservative. It is chaos. It is craven and anti-democratic, purposefully cruel, and far more interested in revenge than in governing.
The urgent question before Phillips Academy students, alumni, faculty, and staff is what to do in the face of knowledge without goodness. Our pledge to the Andover community is this: as the Trump administration continues its manic efforts to push many of us to the margins, to dismiss our mutual compassion as woke posturing, we will not be silent. Instead, we stand with Andover students bravely speaking out against injustice.
To Hwapyung and your fellow students, keep your eyes open and trust your understanding. Trump and company depend on our willingness to not believe what we see. Instead of watching our government disappear a person to a foreign torture prison, they insist that we’ve witnessed nothing more than an administrative error. In light of the world you will be graduating into this spring, a world that needs your discernment and compassion, we want you to know you are not alone. We join you in defense of our deeply held values and shared humanity.
For more information, visit our website: www.nonsibialliance.org.
Signed by Alumni from the Class of 2004:
Celia Alexander
Taylor Allbright
Katerina (DeHart) Ames
Allegra Asplundh-Smith
Aaron Bardo
Michelle Easton Barton
Bill Beregi
Rich Besen
Susannah Bien-Gund
Tess Borden
Zabecca S. Brinson
Iemanja Brown
Jenny Byer
Ieva Chaleckyte
Jennifer Graham Chittim
Thatcher Clay
Livy Coe
David Coit
Meg Dallett
Darren DeFreeuw
Shauni Deshmukh
McKee Floyd Ellis
Abhi Eswarappa
Malika Felix – de Kraaij
Alexandra Filippakis née LaMela
Hailey Folmer
O’Shea Galan
Kevin Gordon
Margaret Griset
Ben Hansen
Michaela Harris
Patrick M. Holkins
Irene Hsu
Alanna Hughes
Laurie Ignacio
Genevieve (Desaulniers) Kandler
Lily Kelly
Jed Kelly
Caroline Kemp López
Ellen Knuti
Anwell Lanfranco
Jacqueline Latina
Jacqui LeBoutillier
Alex Limpaecher
Chris Lynch
Ashley (Lewis) Masse
Thomas McDonell
Jackie Dwulet Miller
Eric T. Mitzenmacher
Kate Monaghan
David Morse
Annie Myers
Natasha Pakravan
Nick Pappadopoulos
Logan Patrick
Edgar Perez
Adelaide Polk-Bauman
Martin T. Quiñones
Johanna M. Rivera
Anthony Roldan
Mariah Russell
Steve Russell
Laura Schoenherr
Ali Schouten-Seeks
Ilana Segall
Mimi Hanley Shilling
Scott Silverstein
April (Franz) Smith
Ashley Macmillan Smith
Michael Stinnett
Aaron Stroble
Meg Sullivan
Emma Sussex
Benjamin Sweeney
Lolita Taub
Mon Thach
Steve Travierso
Audrey Turro
Stephen Turro
Edwin L. Velez
Anders Wallace
Lydia Wallace
April E. Warren
Benn Waters
Henry Andrew Watterson
Emily Weston
PA ’04 Anonymous (23)
