By Hailey Heinz

President Freeland posted an open letter to the community on myNEU yesterday, emphasizing the importance of diversity on campus and criticizing the Women’s Studies program for their attempt to host an event for women of color only.

In the letter, Freeland commended the Student Government Association (SGA) for taking action to get the Sept. 24 event opened to all students, and said hosting an event which excluded a particular group is “simply not consistent with the university’s Equal Opportunity Policy. It is also antithetical to our values and to what Northeastern stands for.”

The event was a discussion of women’s issues called “Breaking Bread: Women of Color Dialogue.” SGA Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael DeRamo spearheaded the effort to open the event to all students.

Freeland said the month delay between the event and the statement was the result of careful deliberation.

“This is something that I’ve been thinking about ever since the event occurred,” Freeland said. “I have been talking to various members of the university about it, and it took us some time to craft a statement.”

DeRamo was involved in the original push to get the event opened to all students, and said he thinks some sort of workshop for programming diversity events might be appropriate. He also said SGA didn’t call for the statement.

“We didn’t ask for it. This is the president responding to the news,” DeRamo said.

The president’s statement emphasized inclusiveness and honoring the spirit of equal opportunities, not just the particulars of the policy. He said he wanted to clarify the issues surrounding the incident since there had been confusion.

“Diversity and inclusiveness are major values of the university. And I thought this was a situation that could create some confusion. I want to be clear about how we go about promoting diversity and inclusion on campus,” Freeland said. “This is a public statement about the principles that were underlying the reaction to the event.”