Protests staged on college campuses last week are the culmination of years of activism around inequality and everyday racism, and incidents pushing racial divisions to the surface.
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The resignation of President Wolfe was a necessary step to appease the black students who were directly impacted by the racist actions that have occurred on the University of Missouri campus, including their student body president being called the “n-word” on campus and a Mizzou student drawing a swastika in a residential hall with their own human feces.
The president went on to talk about students on a few college campuses that have tried to shut out speech they disagree with and prevented controversial people from speaking on campus.
The #ConcernedStudent1950 protests inspired rallies at Yale, Brown, and other universities across the country, calling to end all racial bias on college campuses.
While he did praise the protesters, he noted that they needed to hear the other side and make sure they were “engaging in a dialogue”.
What happened at the University of Missouri? In October, a group of students known as Concerned Student 1950 (the year a black student was first admitted to the university) began protests and demanded that the administration handle the issue before it got out of control. Students have organized similar events at Yale, the University of North Carolina, Colorado State, Western MI, San Jose State University, Howard University, Vassar College and elsewhere. It was the resignation of Timothy Wolfe, president of the three-campus University of Missouri system.
It also advocates for 15 diversity-related demands made at Wednesday’s forum by student-led group Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk, which has become central to the debate that has followed. Someone has gone on a hunger strike, the football team wasn’t going to play, faculty was on strike.
How has the movement spread? “I think Mizzou is a catalyst, an inspiration perhaps, but not a one-off event”.
Many speculate it’s no coincidence Wolfe resigned after the football team protested.
“We’re not that much that different than the people being killed”, said Taylor Lemmons, a junior at Claremont McKenna College. Hashtags such as #InSolidarityWithMizzou, #InSolidarityWithYale, #ConcernedStudent1950 and #BlackOnCampus now have thousands of results on Facebook and Twitter. Students for Change, which was organized to fight discrimination at the university, have been negotiating with the administration for better protection for minority students and for greater diversity on campus, with little success.
I know I’m not alone in that: As we saw last Monday, it was not just marginalized students linking arms in solidarity when the university’s leaders stepped down.
Students at UCLA, Stanford University and Boston University, among dozens of other schools, have also held events in support of black students at the University of Missouri.
How have UC Berkeley students and faculty responded?
Additionally, Missouri is a part of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which consist of schools that consider football as “religion”. “People who are not willing to walk out are seen as not supporting the movement”.
According to Jordan, Maute sent her a text the night before the then-unscheduled march including a link to the call to action.
“The function, the very serious function of racism”, Toni Morrison has said, “is distraction”.
Like in Missouri, a recent Kansas graduate – in this case white – is hoping to attract attention to campus racial issues with a hunger strike.
“It illustrates the disproportionate power of football finances and fundraising”, she said.
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How is UC Berkeley addressing these concerns? Due to the protests taking place in a public space, the student reporter legally had the right to video the protests. I recall the sad days of “Ali Must Go” in Nigeria of the 1970s when the university authorities, with the support of Obasanjo’s military government, used all manner of force to brutalize students who were legitimately protesting the hike in the cost of university education.
