This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Mass Amherst chapter.
Hundreds of UMass students gathered outside of the Student Union on Tuesday March 11th to stand up against police brutality, lack of safe student spaces, and the disconnect between students and administration, according to the “THIS IS UMASS” Facebook event page.
The peaceful protest was in response to the way students, police, and administration handled “Blarney Blowout” and the events that took place Saturday afternoon in the Amherst area. While UMass has been receiving national negative media attention because of Blarney, many student speakers stressed that this is an ongoing problem at the university (for example, the Southwest “riots”). The students believe that something needs to be done as the current actions being taken are not working on this campus.
While this protest was in part to spread the word about the excessive police force many students experienced, all speakers addressed the fact that the handful of students who were acting violently and disorderly to both the police and other students around them should not be ignored, and they should be punished.
“This is not a win for the Amherst police department, this is not a win for the student body, this is not a win for the University of Massachusetts. Nobody comes out of these situations on top,” said Preston Davis, the Student Government Association (SGA) Secretary of Diversity, “We want to be a community, we want to work with our administration. We want this to be safe.”
SGA President Zac Broughton announced that the SGA has three demands to the Amherst Police Department: a directly apology to the Amherst community, an investigation of behavior of selected police officers, and for the Amherst Police Department, the town of Amherst, and UMass administration to sit down with UMass students to discuss about what can be done to prevent something like this from happening again.
At the conclusion of the student speakers, the crowd marched over to the Whitmore Administration Building, while chanting, Pepper spray has got to go, Who’s school? Our school, Show me what UMass can look like; This is what UMass can look like, and What do we want? Students’ rights; When do we want them? Now, along with other chants. When the students reached the Whitmore courtyard, the chanting continued while representatives went inside to see if Chancellor Subbaswamy and/or Vice Chancellor Kennedy was available to face the students, but students were told that they were both out of town.
The delegation is currently working to set up a date in a timely matter where UMass administration, Amherst Police Department, and UMass students can meet and discuss the events of Blarney and what can be done to keep our community working together.
“This is a collective responsibility. The town of Amherst is a great place to live, it’s a great place to be, and clearly, it’s a beautiful place to be,” said Broughton.
For more information regarding the protest and the upcoming meeting, check out the tag #ThisIsUMass on Twitter.