“It’s very disappointing,” says Steven McFarland, a junior at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and co-president of the Swarthmore African American Student Society. “This day is about what Swarthmore is about, social justice. That is why I came here.”
The Philadelphia native says that, for more than a decade, student leaders have, without much success, called on administrators to postpone classes until after the holiday.
Mark Anskis, a spokesman for Swarthmore, says that Dr. Collin Williams Jr., a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak at a breakfast this morning on campus and that the university will honor the lives of three generations of Swarthmore African-American men, including Paul Cato, a student leader who is scheduled to graduate in May.
