Students say Washington college unsafe for women of color

In a packed news conference in downtown Bellingham on Wednesday, students and community activists described Western Washington University’s response to racist threats posted on social media as inadequate.

November 24, 2015: Students gather on the Western Washington University campus in Bellingham, Wash., after classes were canceled because of threats over the weekend against minorities posted on YikYak, an anonymous social media platform populated by college students. But the women, wo are working with a Seattle group called Latino Advocacy, say that move was not enough to protect them.

They said the university should have done a better job of safeguarding those who were threatened, including offering round-the-clock police protection. The posts did not mention a specific action against the students. The decision to cancel classes was precautionary and to make sure students were safe, he said. Seare and others at the news conference said there have been other social media posts as well.

The university of about 15,000 students boasts that almost a quarter of its enrollees are from minority groups. “Threats were being made against me as a black female student and are reflective of our campus climate and the continual violence against black and brown students in communities around the world”. The school’s Thanksgiving break officially begins Wednesday.

Police in OR are investigating unrelated assaults on a black student and a transgender student at Lewis & Clark College, while online threats have targeted students in MI, Missouri and Washington, D.C.

The move comes as college students across the country have launched protests in recent weeks over what they view as racial insensitivity by campus administrators and a lack of minority faculty. A white college student at a sister campus was later arrested for making a terrorist threat. The threats followed a discussion over the school’s Viking mascot. “University Police assessment continues to be that there are no threats to the general campus”. Some students were asking for it to be changed.

Police have opened an investigation into the messages, which campus officials saw turning up during the last two days on the social-media mobile application Yik Yak, Western Washington University President Bruce Shepard wrote on the school’s website. She questioned why threats to students of color are often dismissed, or labeled as overreactions.