In honor of the National Day of Action for Higher Education — how noble! — Kenyon has once again walked out, this time for more transparency between the Board of Trustees and the rest of us. I was in awe at the brazenness of this walkout’s demands, as articulated in Kenyon Young Democratic Socialists of America’s (KYDSA) petition. Brazen demands, unfortunately, do not constitute a meaningful contribution to the Kenyon community.

The first demand is not horribly controversial. “Publish minutes from each meeting of the Board of Trustees. Distribute it to students, faculty, and staff via email by up to a week after each meeting is held.” If this demand is realized, we would get to hear what the Board talks about during its Chalmers champagne receptions, though exactly what we would do with that information would vary. In the best case, we would come to understand why they were making the decisions they were, and could even offer our own great insight into their plans, say, in the Collegian. In the worst case, we would fail to understand their plans whatsoever and denounce them, maybe even planning a walkout to demand further concessions. We would only have a say in what they were doing if they were willing to listen. But I wonder how often the rationales within these minutes would be pointed to as evidence of the Board’s malicious intent.

The second demand is more controversial. “Designate half of the Trustee seats for faculty, staff, students, alumni, and Knox community members with costs waived.” Hypothetically, half of the Trustees are on the chopping block. Practically, very little changes. According to Kenyon’s website, 22 of the 29 current members of the Board are already themselves alumni. If we count being the parent of a Kenyon student as enough of a connection to Kenyon, then 26 of the trustees meet the petition criteria. Two of the remaining three are Episcopal bishops, one serving the Diocese of Ohio and the other serving the Diocese of Southern Ohio. The last, Susan Finn, was appointed in February to take over the seat of her husband, the late alumnus James Finn ’70, after he passed away. Talk about a lack of Kenyon involvement! One wonders, too, whether KYDSA put much thought into embracing all Knox community members. Should people all the way in Centerburg be members of the Board, too? How are they related to Kenyon?

Then “costs waived” implies that one must cough up a good chunk of change to get on the Board. This might be true in reality, but it seems more likely to come from the feeling that “they’re all rich bastards!” In fact, the trustee appointment process is so sparsely documented that I could not find any of the “requirements for membership on the Board of Trustees” that the “Kenyon Alumni Trustee Nomination Form” mentioned. Some documentation might be in order. I have been informed that the Board does not sponsor lodging and travel costs, though I imagine that delegating Kenyon money for the Board to go to a Florida resort would not fly well with KYDSA, either. I am moreover unsure how waiving costs without changing the appointment process will lead to the less wealthy among us Kenyonites getting on the Board. Why would funding mere lodging and travel fees fundamentally change the appointment selection process?

But KYDSA seeks to change the appointment process in its even more controversial third demand. “Hold direct competitive elections for half of all traditional seats on the Board of Trustees.” The “traditional seats” are the remaining half not reapportioned by the second demand, a half that is itself halved into elected seats, and the people voting in these elections are the “faculty, staff, students, alumni, and Knox community members” mentioned earlier. If this demand confused you, it confused me, too; you would think a serious petition might make these things clear. Hypothetically and practically, a quarter of the Board is on the chopping block. So tell me why the Board would give up a quarter of its seats, more than likely to student leaders of KYDSA and Kenyon Students for Justice in Palestine who win by promising to bring justice to the Board? And regardless of the amount of socialist theory that the organization promises to inoculate us with, will our representatives really understand the long-term financial implications of their decisions on the Board? My friends in KYDSA agreed that it was impractical, but that by making such impractical demands they would, for one, at least receive their reasonable first demand, and for another, embody the idealism of the organization and draw like-minded people to their cause. As for the shoddy logic of the first point, why would anyone on the Board choose to appease KYDSA by accepting a small and probably dissatisfactory part of its petition?

I do not deny that the Board has made baffling financial decisions and left us with little rationale for them. The downsizing program, especially the cutting of good professors, is worrisome. Transparency between the Board and the broader Kenyon community could prove beneficial, even if the student body, with its unfortunate inclinations toward virtue signaling and political posturing, tries to exploit meeting minutes. But to cobble together this altogether myopic petition out of three demands — one reasonable, one unnecessary and one impractical — suggests to me that KYDSA more so wants to make itself known than it wants to meaningfully better the Kenyon community.

Joel Coons ’26 is a political science and mathematics major from Hilliard, Ohio. He can be reached at coons1@kenyon.edu.