Starting in the summer of 2026, Scripps Interim Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Stacey Miller, will become the supervisor of the Motley Coffeehouse. Motley staff were not consulted about the decision and have expressed concerns that the change is another example of the continued erasure of student autonomy over the Motley as a space for BIPOC students and as a site for political organizing. 

The Motley Coffeehouse is no stranger to violent admin intervention and oversight. On Oct. 5, 2024, Scripps College forcibly shut down the Motley by changing the locks, leaving 50 Scripps students, most of which are work-study, without a job. Despite the Motley’s reopening on Nov. 11, 2024, Scripps College has yet to finalize a decorations policy for the Motley, and, to this day, no decorations line the Motley’s walls. 

For the past two years, Scripps administrators have censured and controlled student voices. Miller’s new role as supervisor has come with new rhetoric: this censorship is for the safety and well-being of FGLI students. 

Motley baristas spoke with Undercurrents about dangers of this rhetoric, uncertainties with Miller’s new role as supervisor, and other concerns about the administration’s attack on the Motley as a historical space for students of color and political action.

Weaponizing FGLI students for increased censorship

According to one Motley manager, Miller said that “allowing the Motley to put up the Palestinian flag is a legal risk, for it will lead to complaints, which gain traction, which can reach the Trump Administration. The Trump administration has the power to pull Scripps’ nonprofit status, and, as a result, FGLI (first-generation, low income) students will not be able to attend.’”

As another Motley worker put it, “Frankly, it’s really disappointing that administration is like, ‘oh yeah, we’re just going to keep shifting our definition of legal risk and defer to all of these things that the Trump administration is putting in place. We’re just going to go with the worst possible thing and take that and then take it out on students and then try to misconstrue it like we’re trying to protect them.’”  

Another barista described how this framework weaponizes the disadvantaged positions of FGLI students and students of color, allowing Scripps administration to override student voices and autonomy “for their own good.”  

“And it’s interesting that they would bring up that topic while knowingly shutting down the Motley last year, which actively did take away from the funds of low-income and first-generation students,” they said. 

Uncertainty around Miller’s multiple roles leaves baristas fearing retaliation

Miller reportedly won’t specify what she “is and isn’t capable of doing. According to a Motley manager, when questioned if Miller could, for example, “get someone in trouble” or “stop an event from happening” Miller won’t give a clear answer. 

 “I just won’t be here all the time,” Miller said. In the past, past Scripps administrators like Deborah Hebert have specifically censored the political autonomy of the Motley with emails stating explicitly that “the Palestinian flag must come down” or fully shutting down the Motley. Unlike previous administrators, Miller’s and the college’s lack of clarity around her role has led to fear of more complacency and inaction from the larger Scripps Community. 

A Motley worker of four years spoke to the vagueness surrounding Miller’s position change.

 “We’ve obviously struggled with administration because of the way that things are communicated,”  one barista said.  “It does definitely raise flags of like, are we being manipulated? And are there tactics behind this? And the more thatMotley staff have interacted with administration, the more we’re wary of that because of the way that certain things were handled last year,” they said.

Additionally, Miller was involved in the Motley shutdown in 2024. Miller was a neutral third party facilitating discussions between the Motley and Scripps administrators. Not as an advisor or supervisor, but as a neutral third party meant to facilitate discussions between the coffeehouse and the college. For Miller to go from someone impartial and objective to a direct boss raises red flags for the Motley.  

Miller also currently serves as Scripps College’s sole conduct officer. Given that Motley workers are subject to a higher level of scrutiny for conduct proceedings as a result of the ongoing decorations policy debate and because of the brutal shutdown of the Motley last school year, “there is a lot of worrying from the baristas, especially from underclassmen baristas,” says a Motley manager.  

Motley baristas worry that Miller’s goal of a long term position at Scripps college will come in conflict with respecting the historical political autonomy of the Motley as a student space. 

“Ultimately, now, Scripps does have the power of deciding whether or not she gets hired because right now she is Interim Vice President of Student Affairs and she has made it very clear that she hopes that this position is not interim. So there is this wish to get hired full-time and therefore she has to act in alignment with what Scripps College wants,” said a Motley worker. 

Motley History: A Space for Marginalized Students  

Motley baristas  also feel as though Scripps is eroding at the very nature of the Motley by installing a supervisor.  

“I think people might think that this is inconsequential because Dean Miller and the administration are pitching it as such a slight shift. But to me that is exactly how you get sent down this path of them just like taking away things little by little and they’re like chipping at it and replacing it and then, all of a sudden, it’s not at all what it used to be or what it should be. And I feel like we’ve already seen that happen in many ways with SCORE and with other things that students fought really hard for 40, 50 years ago,” says a Motley manager. 

In addition, one Motley worker highlighted that the Motley is “ still going to be marketed to the masses as this amazing student-run place where students can learn leadership and coffee skills and meet so many people and then, in reality, it can’t be further from the truth at all.” 

Scripps College’s attempt to impose a supervisor onto historically student-run and led businesses and the way in which they “co-opt marginalized voices for clout,” as one Motley barista puts it, should be ringing warning bells for Scripps students and for the larger Claremont community. Attacks on student voices are only on the rise, and Scripps College’s shut down and instillation of a supervisor on the Motley Coffeehouse are startling markers of the erasure of  free speech on college campuses. 

As one Motley barista put it, “I think there’s only so many spaces, especially at a PWI where like SWANA students, Black and brown students can go and really feel comfortable. I think the general trying to quiet down the activist side of the space is like what makes the space feel less comfortable for students that at a school like Scripps College don’t have places where they can go to feel that.”