Largely student-driven, the 1971 Earthworks proposal declared that students must be equipped "to function creatively, contributively, responsibly and happily in a world whose central characteristic is radical change," a task at which traditional institutions were allegedly failing. Students and teachers explained that they sought to depart from "the authoritarian model of teaching," where teachers are considered "imparters of knowledge" who are seldom mistaken. The school board approved the project despite a rebuke from the board of Ann Arbor's Roman Catholic St. Thomas School (now Gabriel Richard), which called the plan "discriminatory by giving support to one group looking for alternatives."