To Members of the Dartmouth Community:


Women in Computer Science (WiCS) stands in solidarity with the 2018 First-Year Trips Director, the Assistant Director, and the Directorate as a whole in response to the recent Op-Ed published in The Dartmouth that attacked their characters and dismissed the enormous amount of labor they have put forth for this college.


We support and will continue to support this group of extraordinary and highly-qualified students because we are no strangers to the damaging assumption that diversity and merit exist at odds.  We have seen them it many times before, from the Google Manifesto of James Damore that claimed that gender imbalance in achievement is the result of biological differences, to the systematic exclusion of minorities from tech.  So have all of you.


We are an organization that exists inherently in defiance of these destructive views, and we will not stay quiet in the face of blatant sexism and racism.  We hope that the Dartmouth community will do the same.


Women can attain positions of power by their own virtue.  The affirmation and inclusion of people of color is the result of humanity, not ideology.


WiCS is confident in the credentials and merit of each and every member of the First-Year Trips Directorate, and that their refreshing diversity in identities and experiences will only benefit the Dartmouth Class of 2022 and the Dartmouth community as a whole.  Most importantly, we want to celebrate and recognize the tremendous contributions of women, people of color, queer folk, members of the first-generation and/or low-income community, and other marginalized peoples to an institution that was not created with them in mind.  We hope that you will stand with us.


Finally, we call on the entire Dartmouth community to turn their attention instead to cases of systematic, acute gender imbalance.  We will push our society forwards by casting a critical eye on those hotbeds of intolerance, such as the tech industry, as opposed to attacking and invalidating the women who put forth their time and energy for the betterment of our institution.


In Solidarity,

Women in Computer Science