About a dozen students gathered in protest of the newly appointed UNC System President Margaret Spellings’ visit to campus Wednesday, a stark contrast to the crowd of hundreds who greeted Spellings during her visit to UNC-Chapel Hill in March.
The 12 students with signs were surrounded by police officers on horses and in plain clothes, which further emphasized the lower-than-expected turnout among demonstrators.
Spellings took office as the UNC System president March 1 and has since been the subject of an onslaught of protests. Starting before she took office and continuing through the present, faculty and students have expressed concern with the direction Spellings will take the UNC System. Protesters have criticized her remarks about the LGBT community, as well as her corporate connections and ties to President George W. Bush’s education administration.
The few students at the protest stood on the stairs in front of the NC State insignia in Talley Student Union with signs reading “Maggie Spells Trouble” and “We Are Not This.”
The small showing of students who went to protest was attributed to the fact that NC State was a STEM school, according to the protesters. They criticized the fact that NC State has a poor history with activism and has no infrastructure for organizing protests.
The 12 students who came to protest Spellings got the chance to speak with her as she walked between meetings. Spellings responded to their comments by saying, “I’ve only been here for six weeks; I hope you give me a chance.”
“Her whole hiring process is extremely problematic, but one of the biggest issues is her position on GLBT rights,” said Rebeka Galeano, one of the protesters and a student studying sociology and biological sciences.
Former UNC System President Tom Ross was forced to resign with little explanation prior to Spellings’ appointment, which caused an outcry among students, faculty and administrators who felt the UNC Board of Directors had no reason to ask Ross to step down.
Criticisms of her position on the LGBT community stem from a letter she wrote in 2005 in which she said parents wouldn’t want their children exposed to certain “lifestyles.”
Recent attention surrounding House Bill 2 resurfaced these complaints against Spellings.
In part of her statement concerning the law, Spellings said she was worried about the implications of the law and “what it might suggest with respect to the culture we would be engendering on campuses.”
Spellings used this most recent stop on her tour of the UNC System campuses to meet with faculty and students in order “to get a broad view of everything we have to offer,” according to a representative of the NC State special events department who planned the tour for NC State.
