OPINION: Why Students Still Need to Build Pressure to Rename the Library

Although it is great news that the resolution to rename the Allison and Howard Lutnick Library passed in Haverford’s 2026 Spring Plenary, especially by a vast majority, the passage of the plenary resolution is not a conclusive victory but the beginning of a long bureaucratic process that can easily stall. We have only but won a single battle of an ongoing war. Without sustained student pressure, the renaming effort is unlikely to succeed.

It is important to remember that the resolution is only a request to President Wendy Raymond to establish a review committee on making a recommendation on whether to actually rename the library. According to the naming policy, even if the committee makes a recommendation to rename the library, the President herself then makes her own recommendation to the External Affairs Committee of the Board of Managers along with its chair and vice-chair, who then make their own recommendation to the Board of Managers. A change to the library’s name requires approval from each of them.

The decision ultimately rests in the Board’s hands, and there is reason to believe they will decide to not rename the library. Because Howard Lutnick has not been formally charged with wrongdoing, the Board may argue that renaming would be premature or reputationally risky. Another important factor they have to consider is the threat of the federal government withholding funds from Haverford College. However, President Raymond has stated that “Liberal arts colleges, like ours, which are relatively wealthy, can afford to break this partnership with the federal government if we must,” signalling a readiness to accept the potential consequences of offending the federal government. That being said, the question remains whether or not the Board is willing to accept a potential decrease to the endowment.

Aside from withholding funds, the federal government could threaten to eliminate student visas, crack down on activist groups on campus, or even challenge the college’s nonprofit status.

These are valid points of consideration against renaming the college. But if we do not draw the line at someone as horrible as Howard Lutnick, then where should we draw it? Are we willing to put aside transgender rights to keep the college safe from political retaliation? Would dismantling gender neutral bathrooms be okay? Should we introduce “viewpoint diversity” into the hiring and admissions process? Would dismantling GRASE be okay?

At some point, the question stops being about risks to Haverford and starts being about whether the college is willing to uphold its values, even when doing so is inconvenient. Appeasement only invites further attacks on our values, and if those values only hold when they are costless, they are not really values at all—they are corporate branding. 

Past decisions by the Haverford College Board of Managers suggest a consistent pattern of prioritizing the college’s finances over student and community demands. In the early 2010s, a sustained campaign for fossil fuel divestment, sparked by students concerned about climate change, prompted formal review by the Board’s Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility. In 2013, the Board ultimately decided not to pursue divestment. 

Similarly, student activists organized sit‑ins and encampments around calls to divest from the Israeli apartheid state after October 7th, 2023, and the shooting of a Haverford student in November of that same year. The board has also decided not to pursue divestment.

This, however, is not to say that student activism is ineffective.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Haverford students organized the Anti-Apartheid Committee to pressure the Board of Managers to divest from companies profiting from South Africa’s apartheid regime. The committee staged sit-ins, vigils, and protests over multiple days, building and sustaining pressure that eventually led to Haverford’s decision to divest from companies linked to apartheid South Africa.

If students want the renaming to succeed, they will need to sustain visible, organized pressure. Epstein posters scattered across the library or letters tacked to the doors are not enough. We need to make inaction more costly than action.