The Black Student Alliance and 13 other student organizations sent a joint letter to Duke administrators Friday morning criticizing the end of the Black Student Alliance Invitational and outlining demands to reemphasize the University’s commitment to its Black students.

The letter expressed concerns about “the future of Black Duke” given the end of BSAI, which introduced prospective first-year students to Duke from a Black perspective through networking events, mentorship opportunities with upperclassmen, cultural performances and a two-night stay in East or West Campus residence halls.

Individual students, student organizations and affinity groups all sent copies of the letter to various senior administrators at 9 a.m., including President Vincent Price, Mary Pat McMahon, vice provost and vice president of student affairs and other Student Affairs personnel.

“With the silent dismantling of the Black Student Alliance Invitational, Black students, alumni and faculty are both outraged and immensely disappointed in the Duke administration,” the letter said.

The Chronicle first reported the pause of BSAI on April 9. Prior to the article’s publication, the University had released no public communication regarding the status of the program, which the letter said “reflects a clear disregard for student voices and input.”

Sophomore Ashley Coburn, incoming president of BSA, said that the letter was an important step in communicating to Duke that it “cannot just silently remove something that means so much to so many students” without transparency.

“We just feel like there are better ways to communicate or just acknowledge what’s going on and not just leave students in the dark,” Coburn added.

According to emails obtained by The Chronicle after publication, McMahon and Executive Vice Provost Mohammad Noor — alongside members of Duke’s Strategic Enrollment team — will meet with members of BSA and other student organizations to address the concerns raised in the letter “and talk through next steps.”

“We also appreciate the care for the Duke community reflected in the messages we’ve received today,” McMahon and Noor wrote in a Friday evening email response to multiple students who sent copies of the letter this morning.

Earlier Friday at 4:14 p.m., a University spokesperson wrote in an email to The Chronicle, “We appreciate the Black Student Alliance sharing their concerns … Fostering connections to programs that reflect and support students’ identities and communities — including for our Black students — remains central to the program.”

Junior Gabriela Mendoza, one of the BSAI co-chairs, said that administrators told her that BSAI would not occur during a meeting initially described as a preliminary planning session. As part of the change, Mendoza and her co-chairs’ positions were renamed to “Impact Ambassadors,” and BSAI was replaced with the new “Blue Devil Nights.”

Mendoza felt that she applied to be BSAI co-chair under “false pretenses” and that the University did not provide adequate transparency in its decision-making on the program. 

The spokesperson added that Blue Devil Days and Nights were designed in consultation with student leaders associated with identity and cultural centers. They said that the University received “much positive feedback” on the Blue Devil Nights and looks forward to “refining our approach” to serve admitted students from diverse backgrounds in the future.

The letter also aimed to challenge Duke administrators’ reasoning for pausing BSAI. Jenny Wood Crowley, associate vice provost for strategic enrollment management, previously told The Chronicle in an April 9 email that the decision to pause BSAI was made after a regular review of all University programming to “ensure they align with evolving legal guidance and institutional priorities.”

The authors of the letter argue that since BSAI “takes place after ‘color-blind admissions,’” and therefore does not violate the Supreme Court ruling banning race-based affirmative action, they deserve more clarification on what legal guidance the University was referring to in its decision. 

The letter also noted the timing of BSAI’s closure, saying the University is following a trend of the “erasure of infrastructure that aims to support and uplift the broader Duke community.” It pointed to a 2024 decision to close the Reginaldo Howard Scholarship program — which provided full-ride scholarships to “top applicants of African descent” — in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. 

In addition to BSAI, the University also halted Latino Student Recruitment Weekend, which served a similar function for prospective Latino first-year students. Junior Aaron Andino, co-president of Mi Gente, which also signed on to the letter, criticized the lack of communication regarding that decision. 

“Mi Gente specifically never received any communication from administration about the removal of LSRW, which I think for a lot of us, we would have appreciated,” Andino said.

To address the outlined concerns, the letter listed five specific demands for the University designed “to increase transparency in decision-making and preserve spaces specifically tailored to Black members of the Duke community.”

The demands include the reinstatement of BSAI, a meeting with Black student leaders and a public statement from Student Affairs that will provide “full transparency” on the reasons for BSAI’s cancellation. Additional demands involve increasing communication between University administrators and Black student leaders, including through monthly meetings of the President’s Council on Black Affairs.

Finally, the letter calls for a “visible acknowledgment” of the Allen Building Takeover, which occurred in 1969 when over 50 students — the majority of whom were Black — occupied administrative offices to raise awareness around Black students’ concerns of exclusion from Duke’s academics and campus culture.

Mendoza said she felt the demands were neither “difficult” nor “obscure.”

“They have the plans to do it, they have the facilities to do it, they have the administration to do it,” Mendoza said. “It’s just a matter of if they want to.” 

The Duke Student Government Executive Board also endorsed the letter, with DSG President Angela Chen, a junior, saying that it is important for DSG to use its platform to support student affinity groups.

“Now, more than ever, the University should be investing in programs that bolster care for minority communities,” Chen said.

In addition to BSA, the DSG Executive Board and Mi Gente, the letter was also signed by the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Black Pre-Law Society, Duke Persian Student Association, Beyond Borders, Duke Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Duke Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, BlackGen Capital Duke, Sunrise Duke, Black Muslim Coalition and DukeAFRICA.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 7:50 p.m. to reflect McMahon and Noor’s responses to student emails.