Jon Baker posted the following to the Antioch College Alumni & Community Facebook group.
Three days before the College’s June 20 graduation three current students met with Jane. Students had circulated a petition in support of professor Michael Casselli who she had fired. The petition, asking college administration to allow him to attend graduation, got 181 signatures from students, alumni, current and former staff and other community members. One of the student delegation said their proposal came out of student meetings and reflected a broad student concern about Casselli’s firing. Those students, and others, protested his initial firing in February, carrying signs that read: “Be ashamed to die until you rectify.”
On June 17 the small delegation of students met with Jane. They believed their actions reflected Antioch’s tradition of community governance: students bringing a concern to institutional leadership and trying, together, to find a solution.
By that evening, the students believed they had reached an agreement with Jane that would have allowed Casselli to attend specific events at specific times — the senior Colloquia, commencement, Grawlix creative showcases and the already-approved reunion events. Other restrictions on Casselli would remain. The students said that Jane verbally agreed to the framework and told them written terms would be sent to Casselli the following day. Later that night, Jane reneged, denying all of the things she had agreed upon.
The students were confused by the apparent about-face in the decision. In a public statement released June 19, one of them wrote that the administration should have said “no” from the beginning if it was unwilling or unable to approve the students’ request. Students spent part of their final week working toward a solution they believed had been accepted, he argued, only for it to be reversed in “whiplash decision-making.”
“An agreement was made, and then that was broken. What happened in between, we don’t understand,” they said.
Information from the Yellow Springs News, 7/3/26.
