Statement issued June 4th, 2020:

 As sisters of the Alpha Chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon Professional Foreign Service Sorority, we swore to fight for Freedom, Justice, and Human Rights wherever our lives may take us. We stand in solidarity with the Black Identifying community and the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and countless other Black lives lost to police brutality, white supremacy, and systemic racism. We as Georgetown students have benefited from the institutional racism that is pervasive in our community, and we recognize that our organization would not exist without Georgetown’s sale of 272 black Americans in 1838.* As women for others, we commit to fighting institutional racism in all its forms, both inside and outside of our organization, across our nation and the globe. 

We have established a working group that will meet weekly within our sisterhood to confront racism. This group is working to implement concrete ways for DPE to effect change in our community, including but not limited to: adding a diversity and inclusion position to our board as well as working to eliminate barriers to joining and remaining part of our sisterhood. Our goals are to identify meaningful actions we can take to combat racism and to find and correct weaknesses within our sisterhood and our university. We cannot fight for justice in our community without finding and correcting weaknesses present in our own organization and campus. 

Our words and actions cannot bring back Black lives lost at the hands of police brutality and systemic racism, nor can they undo centuries of oppression. However, we reaffirm our commitment to educating ourselves to become better allies, utilizing our platform to help amplify Black voices, and fighting to shape a future that guarantees freedom and racial justice. 

*more information about Georgetown’s history with slavery can be found at http://slavery.georgetown.edu/