On the morning of November second, there was news that my friend Jonathan Butler of Mizzou was commencing a hunger strike. Jonathan said that he would not eat until the University of Missouri System President, Tim Wolfe, was removed. He wrote that he was fully committed to this cause, and that Wolfe’s lack of response to several key racist events, along with the everyday micro aggressions on the Mizzou campus had created an unsafe campus atmosphere. As I watched it all evolve from across the country, I struggled with many different things: fear, anger, sadness. One emotion that I did not experience was surprise. A person can only be fundamentally afraid for so long—this was a long time coming.
Several key incidents this academic year are being cited as the causes for this month’s events. Since September, numerous black students have shared incidents of peers shouting racial slurs, including the n-word, at them on campus. Then in late October, a swastika was found drawn in human feces at a residence hall.
In addition to these horrific events, the school received criticism for cutting graduate healthcare funding and Planned Parenthood services. There were rallies, demonstrations and even a meeting between Wolfe and student activists, but the issue still was not receiving the attention that supporters were fighting for. So began the movement.
Three days into Butler’s strike, students, staff and faculty staged a walk out. Two days after that, the school’s football team announced that it would not partake in football activities until Wolfe resigned, potentially costing the school millions of dollars. Chaos reigned over campus. Finally, on November ninth, with the media, politicians, and students of all creeds watching, Wolfe submitted his formal resignation. Wolfe said that he “take[s] full responsibility for inaction”. His resignation was followed shortly by that of Colombia Campus Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.
In the wake of Wolfe’s resignation, death threats to black students emerged on the social media site Yik Yak. Two students were quickly arrested in association with the posts, amid continued threatening behavior against the black population of Mizzou.
Whatever your opinions on these events the fact remains that students do not feel safe on their own campus. Imagine feeling ignored, and afraid, every second of every day that you spend on campus. Imagine being threatened, simply because of the holidays that your family celebrates. Imagine having no room left for anything but fear. That fear is what’s at the core of this issue, and that is something that should matter to all of us.
The events at the University of Missouri have sparked shows of both protest and solidarity on campuses all across the county, including Yale University, Ithaca College, and Cal Poly.
This week, the Cal Poly College Republicans erected a “Free Speech Wall” on Dexter Lawn, encouraging students’ right to expression. Anonymity once again became an unwilling shield for hatred, and the wall quickly became littered with derogatory speech. The comments specifically targeted LGBT+ students and Muslim students. One example included the words “Islam is a political movement of violence and oppression” and “Islam has no place in free Western worlds” scrawled around a violent depiction of an Islamic man. In addition to population-specific comments, there were general anti-diversity comments, such as “It’s sad that some people think ‘diversity’ automatically brings benefits without any evidence”. These messages have since been crossed out, but the wall still stands.
Supporters of the wall say that what is written there, regardless of intention, is an embrace of the purpose of the project. While clearly hurtful, the words are technically protected by freedom of speech.
But what about the right of students to feel safe on their own campus? “Someone took time out of their day to attack my religious beliefs in writing, where the whole school could potentially see it. How do you think that makes me feel?” said Cal Poly Sophomore Jenna Alazzah. “Does free speech come at the expense of my feeling safe and comfortable at this school?”
When it comes to speech, being ‘protected’ and being right are not the same thing, and Alazzah is not the only one who thinks so. A group of students have come together under the name SLO Solidarity, with the expressed purpose of “a movement that aims to educate and actively combat racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of hate, discrimination, and intolerance at Cal Poly”. In the past few days, hundreds of Cal Poly students have rallied around those students being targeted on our campus, and campuses around the nation.
Freshman were told during their Week of Welcome that hate is not a Cal Poly value. They were told that we are a family, and that we support each other as such. What we do next will determine the validity of those statements.