The fire this time at Purdue
Students are getting organized to confront racism at Purdue, reports .
"Hey hey, ho ho, white supremacy's got to go."
"Mitch, let's face it, you've got to deal with racists."
"Whose school? Our school!"
THESE MILITANT chants by a chorus of 200 students and faculty at Purdue University rang out through blue skies on April 22 as a diverse crowd--Black, white and Asian, gay and straight--shut down traffic on campus to protest a series of racist threats targeting students of color. The protesters named Mitch Daniels, who is the current university president and former Republican governor of Indiana, as a symbol of the university's indifference to the broad sentiment among minority students that the campus is a threat to their well being and their lives.
Protest organizers described a string of assaults on campus as the impetus for their action. In February 2012, a portrait of the late African American professor Cornell Bell was defaced with the "n" word inside the university's Krannert School of Management. Then last spring, Purdue students used twitter accounts to blast racist messages directed against Asian students. Last fall, fraternity members wrote the word "nigger" on a whiteboard near two Black students studying on campus.
Then in December, the FBI released statistics showing Purdue to have the second highest number or reported hate crimes and bias incidents among college campuses in the country. On April 22, the damn broke.
Students chose "The fire this time" as the name for their demonstration, referencing the title of James Baldwin's 1963 civil rights classic promising retribution against U.S. racism as well as a 1968 march of the same name at Purdue by African American students demanding a Black Cultural Center (BCC), among other things. Symbolically, students began Monday's march at the center established by that earlier action.
They marched from the BCC across campus, stopping to form a massive solidarity circle where Purdue graduate student Aria Halliday, Stephen Horrocks and Na'eema Webb led the crowd in chants of "Show us what diversity looks like, this is what diversity looks like!"
FROM THERE, students marched inside Hovde Hall, the main administration building, and delivered a list of demands to the president's office. The demands included:
1. Public statements by Daniels that address the biased acts that have occurred on campus in print, video and email form.
2. The number of minority faculty and students to double in the next 10 years.
3. A required undergraduate course on race/racism.
4. A required workshop on racial bias for all attendees of Boiler Gold Rush (BGR), Purdue's orientation program that occurs the week before classes begin.
5. A strict policy in the Purdue Code of Conduct that results in expulsion from the university for people who commit acts of prejudice.
6. Required workshops for faculty and staff regarding racial policies.
7. Immediate reporting of hate crimes via Purdue news and alert systems.
Students also confronted Purdue Provost Timothy Sands before marching to the president's office. The provost's recitation of statistics on diversity were met with angry challenges about lack of inclusion at Purdue, failure to protect students from physical and verbal violence, and calls for immediate action. One African American student approached the provost to say he was transferring after being assaulted on campus. He deposited on the ground a spent candle, which students had carried to symbolize their protest, telling the provost, "My candle has gone out."
Marchers gave the university until April 26 to respond to their list of demands, and promised to step up militancy if they were not met.
The massive march was comprised of members of the Purdue Anti-Racism Coalition, Purdue LGBTQ Society, Purdue Students for Justice in Palestine, the Women's Studies Program, Purdue International Socialists, and American Studies programs. Many marchers were veterans of a 500-strong campus-wide march on March 22 to commemorate the struggle for women's rights in the U.S.
The campus has been galvanized over the past year by the Occupy movement, a stirring fightback against "right-to-work" legislation that passed last spring, the Trayvon Martin shooting, and attempts to cut funding for Planned Parenthood in Indiana. In combination with the string of recent racist attacks, Purdue is seeing the development of a new layer of committed activists carrying the fight forward. Beyond April 26, they are already planning campaigns for the fall semester.
The fire at Purdue is far from out.
