Dozens of students gathered at Wolf Plaza on Thursday to express their support for the students at the University of Missouri and Yale University who have been in ideological struggle with administrators over their handling of several racial incidents over recent months.
“It has become clear, once again, that NC State students need to take action for our peers at other institutions,” said Jasmine Cannon, a campus leader and student activist who organized the meeting, in an email.
Tensions on the University of Missouri’s campus reached a boiling point on the issue of race last week, drawing national attention for the students’ efforts to create understanding between black students and administrators that prompted attempts to halt major university functions such as a homecoming parade and, with help from the football team, a football game.
A graduate student at UM, Jonathan Bulter, began a hunger strike to bring attention to the lack of administration response to issues facing black students on campus.
Tim Wolfe, system president for the University of Missouri, and University of Missouri’s Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, were forced to step down under mounting criticism from students and faculty on Monday.
Wolfe was shown on video being confronted by students late in the evening who asked how he defined systemic racism. Looking helpless, Wolfe prefaced his response by saying that anything he said would be wrong and finally responded saying, “it [means] you don’t believe that you have equal opportunity for success,” emphasizing the “you don’t believe” part, which sent the students into an uproar.
As Wolfe walked away, a woman asked, “Did you just blame black students for systemic racism, Tim Wolfe?”
Yale University has also made headlines after a faculty member sent an email defending free speech in response to a mass email sent by the administration which called for cultural sensitivity in dressing up for Halloween. A series of YouTube videos surfaced depicting the faculty member who sent the response email speaking directly to students about the issue of free speech.
This discussion quickly devolved into a shouting match when students demanded their concerns be legitimized, which the administrator was not willing to do to their satisfaction.
Cannon, a senior majoring in women’s and gender studies, used her connections to organize a moment of support with students and faculty who were passionate about #ConcernedStudents1950 movement to using the hashtag #NCSUStandsWithMizzou.
“[We are] standing in solidarity with those who have been facing overt discrimination whether it be violent or mental or any sort of discrimination and haven’t been able to garner the support that they need from administration,” Cannon said while addressing the crowd.
Cannon said that when she looks at the situation in Missouri, she could see the same thing happening here.
“I see myself, I see that that could happen on my campus,” Cannon said. “I see that I could be one of those students that could feel unsafe walking on campus just any given day whether it’s after a protest or class. I could see myself in the same situation as the students I’ve read about in Missouri.”
Cannon listed off a series of incidents as evidence that racism is still alive in much of the country such as a party at Yale where black students were denied entry, and at NC State with the “Little Green Book” incident last year, numerous instances that Student Body President Khari Cyrus has dealt with since being elected and the “CMT vs. BET” party that took place at a nearby housing complex involving NC State students last month.*
“The stuff that is going on here are not isolated events,” Cannon reiterated. “Stuff like this is going on around the entire country.”
Chancellor Randy Woodson made a point to address the growing tensions last week in his Chancellor’s letter saying, “Recent events around the country and within the NC State community have served to remind us all that we have not progressed as much as we would all hope in our journey toward cultural competency.”
In his letter, Woodson said the Council on Undergraduate Education is reviewing the diversity component of the General Education Program. He said he has asked Provost Warrick Arden and Vice Chancellor Mike Mullen to “insure that the student voice is part of this discussion as the committee and the faculty consider the best approach to insuring diversity and inclusion are a meaningful part of our curricula at NC State.”
Woodson also stressed that diversity and inclusion education is not just a student issue but a faculty issue.
“We need to insure that we are using every means possible to help our faculty and staff on their personal journey towards cultural competency,” Woodson wrote.
Dr. P. J. Adams, a psychologist and the multicultural coordinator at the Counseling Center, was in attendance along with several other faculty members showing their support for the students in Missouri and around the country asking for respect. Adams noted the role that effective leadership can have to resolve issues of race.
“[I feel] like how you respond as a community and how administrators, from their positions of power, does have a significant impact on whether a community feels listened to or visible,” Adams said. “I don’t think that [the University of Missouri] could have had the perfect solution to make it all better in a week, but to be able to connect with students around what their experience is on campus and make that feel validated — they failed to do that.”
Adams said the Counseling Center has made a special effort to reach out to students so that students of all backgrounds feel welcome coming to them when they have concerns whether they be racial or otherwise.
“As a multicultural community there’s going to be a variety of emotional effects around racial incidents,” Adams said. “So the question is: How do we have enough visibility to show all our students that we’re there to help them through these experiences?”
As part of this effort, the Counseling Center met with Multicultural Student Affairs just last week to try and open an informal dialogue in the hopes that it will encourage more students to feel comfortable talking about personal issues of race. The function of MSA is to advise and advocate for historically underrepresented student groups in administrative settings.
“Historically for counseling centers, students of color perceive the center less as a resource around issues like [racial discrimination],” Adams said.
Adams said that in order to make lasting change, administrators have to be proactive in addressing racial disparities on campus.
“Institutionally, to me, it’s about stepping beyond our policies,” Adams said. “A lot of systems or universities will have something on paper whether that’s like a ‘diversity statement’ — but how do we live those values?”
Cannon situated the current movement in the context of NC State’s own historical struggles to improve racial disparities on campus dating back to a time when black people had to fight to gain access to scholarships and to have a space devoted to them, which resulted in the creation of the African-American Cultural Center. Though these fights have been won, Cannon said that the black community is still marginalized in many ways and the only way to maintain the ground they have gained is to continue to speak up.
“You should refuse to be a silent and respectable marker of diversity on campus,” Cannon said. “If there is something that you need you should know that there is someone on campus that you can go to and that what you need as student, as a black student, is a priority on this campus.”
*EDITOR’S NOTE: The story originally included the following: “Cannon listed off a series of incidents that show racism is still alive in much of the country such as the nooses that were hung on Duke’s campus and others…” While Cannon did name these incidents in her speech, the noose on Duke’s campus was found to be the result of a foreign student who was unaware of the history of nooses in the United States. Also, what was thought to be nooses hung from a tree on the campus of the University of Delaware, which was the incident referenced by “others”, were actually left overs from paper lanterns. The article has been edited to reflect this.
