The Walkout encouraged members of the campus community to vacate their regular campus responsibilities and join members of POC at IC in protest of the leadership of the college and in solidarity with people of color on the Ithaca college campus.
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Just two days after thousands of fast-food workers hit the streets across the nation to demand a $15-an-hour wage and union rights for that sector, college students across the US marched at over 120 campuses in at least 100 cities for the cause of free tuition for public college and the cancellation of student loan debt.
Ithaca College students have also been rallying for weeks to demand more empathy from the college administration, but recently ratcheted up their own demands to force out college president Tom Rochon.
“We have no desire to work with this broken system”, one student said at the protest, according to the Cornell Daily Sunday. “We must then act to stop these experiences within our ALANA [an acronym for African, Latino, Asian, Native American] community and all underrepresented communities on campus”.
“Systematic oppression affects us all”, said Tyahra Angus, a senior, speaking through a megaphone to the group, a mix of minority and white students.
Ithaca College issued a comment about the controversy. Faculty will hold a similar vote but do not have a date yet.
Protesters are embracing more extreme tactics – everything from hunger strikes to walkouts to athletes refusing to play – because these issues have been simmering for years, and “lower stakes tactics have not been fruitful”, he adds. “Such language, intentional or unintentional, exists in the world and will seep into our community”, Rochon said in a statement to the Ithaca community last month.
The exact authority the results of such a vote would have is unclear. “We can’t promise that the college will never host a speaker who could say something racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or otherwise disrespectful”, Rochon said. “Other institutions have been able to engender lasting change by establishing this level of accountability, and I am confident that this is the right thing for Ithaca College as well”, Rochon said in the statement.
It is true that much has changed since segregationist governor George Wallace blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama to prevent two black students enrolling in 1963.
Rochon has been president of Ithaca College since 2008.
“We’re calling it a draft because we realized that it reflected the wisdom of about 10 people in the room”, he said.
I feel safe at my college, and I am incredibly grateful for that, but what I don’t feel is happy or content. The way a few on campus have been responding to our efforts to secure justice has made me sad, angry and frustrated with my college. The President of IC’s Student Government Association, Dominick Recckio, told MTV News that the root of the problem is the lack of student representation in major decisions at the college and students feeling that the response to racially insensitive incidents is not what it should be.
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They include the creation of “clear guidelines for resolving discrimination complaints for any type of bias or inequity, as well as details on how to seek help and available resources for support”, and redefining guidelines “to ensure inclusiveness in our faculty, staff, and student employee hires”.
