A national call to action and walkout has been called for today in solidarity with black students at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). The students have faced increased hostility and threats to their safety since university President Tim Wolfe and another chancellor resigned earlier in the week. The students had called for Wolf’s ouster over what they say were the university’s inadequate responses to a hostile racial climate on campus.
A tim line of major racial incidents at the university can be found here, and the full list of the student protestors’ demands can be found here.
Students at Ithaca College in New York staged a walkout in solidarity with the Mizzou students on Wednesday, calling for their own president to resign. The Ithaca students say there have been similar racially insensitive incidents on campus that were also not adequately addressed.
Students at Yale rallied about the climate on their campus just prior to the incidents at Mizzou.
Sadly, even high school students are not immune.
The hashtag #blackoncampus is being used on social media for students to speak out about what they have experienced on their campuses.
In Los Angeles, students from UCLA and USC planned to stage their walkouts between noon and 2 PM.
“Black students at UCLA know firsthand about the racist intransigence at some of these institutions,” said Shamell Bell, an organizer for the walkout. “We absolutely stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters at the University of Missouri.” UCLA students will walk out of classes at 1 PM and gather between Powell and Royce Halls on the main campus.
A “Kanye Western-themed party” hosted by Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and Alpha Phi sorority welcomed students back to school there in October. According to Janay Williams, “Students were told to dress as either Kanye West or in western attire, but some students ran with that as a way to flaunt every racial stereotype imaginable: blackface make-up, baggy pants, ‘do rags,’ wife beaters (undershirts), backwards caps,” she said. “Some black students who attended were extremely offended. We waited to see what the administration was going to do; they did nothing, so we went into action,” Williams said.
The UCLA students also compiled a list of demands they felt would make the campus a more welcoming environment.
Mykaila Williams, the executive director of USC’s Black Student Assembly, said that the terrorism and racism that is happening on college campuses are not isolated incidents but signs of systemic issues that transcend campuses. “It’s not an option to act in solidarity, it’s an obligation,” said Williams. She also said that the timing of these actions were especially good for USC. “With the passing of our Campus Climate Resolution that touches on diversity and inclusion being necessary on this campus in ways that is hasn’t been in the past, it all makes sense,” Williams said.
USC students will meet at the statute of Tommy Trojan in the center of campus from noon to 2 PM.