University of Kansas student leaders outline diversity plan

If the University of Missouri succeeds in meeting a student demand for a faculty that’s 10 per cent black in two years, it will likely be alone among its peers.

The conflict at the University of Missouri, which inspired the march at Ramapo, began with the student body acting against the perceived lack of attentiveness by the administration to deal with numerous racially charged incidents.

In early October, former chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, after the Legion of Black Collegians posted an open letter on Twitter about brushes with racism, responded with a YouTube video denouncing hate and announced mandatory diversity training. Both top officers of the university had to go because of how they, especially Wolfe, flagrantly mismanaged the issue of racial tensions which were tearing the university apart.

The authorities did not take up the issue in any substantial way. By addressing these experiences, student activists are attempting to reshape the narrative used to discuss race in the United States and to shatter the “post-racial” illusion many believe exists. Once again, the authorities only took judicial notice of their complaints and no more.

Numerous students placed duct tape over their mouths to show a silent, but peaceful protest. They were unequivocal about not participating in their scheduled game unless the president quit. Their white colleagues backed them. That was the moment the authorities woke up from their administrative reverie and recognized the seriousness of the problem. A swastika drawn with human feces was found. Football players voiced their support and Wolfe resigned November 9.

Protesters, including the Mizzou football team, demanded the removal of President Tim Wolfe following criticism of his response to anti-black and Jewish incidents on campus. “This is Gainesville. We have a lot of Hispanics”. It was noted that the three would not proclaim that black lives matter. We exit the womb prepared to comment on the skills of our mother’s obstetrician, so of course I have something to say about Mizzou and Yale.

Janelle Scott, a UC Berkeley associate professor in the Graduate School of Education and the African American studies department, suggested the campus redouble its efforts to ensure that graduate programs are diverse and that underrepresented-minority students are succeeding in those graduate programs so that they can become the “faculty of tomorrow”. For most people, college was an opportunity to push the envelope.

The voice of students can not be silenced.

Accross the country black students are demanding better treatment at their colleges and universities. But he said he could understand why a few on campus are calling for the student leaders to resign.

On Saturday, the University of Missouri issued a statement to denounce what it called “false social media reports” that people supporting the protest movement were upset that Paris was “diverting media attention”.

Set aside an annual budget of at least $500,000 that is made available to student groups interested in programming around issues of race and racism.

The group’s route brought them through the Academic Building and Student Center, then out into the damp night air, around residence halls Mackin and Bischoff, and finally through the Village and the quad bordered by Linden, Laurel and Pine. “Yes, it definitely bothered me at the time, this was a person I barely knew”, says Quan. No. He waited until the situation completely got out of control. That has not happened. And if the fact that I am white leads you to the pre-emptive conclusion that my opinion on this is worthless, you should jump right over this column and head to the sports section because, as we found out this week, football is the only thing that matters anymore.

On the one hand it’s hard not to experience a little schadenfreude here, with the left-wing progressive bean-counters of American academia now apparently being eaten by their own young.