Over 100 students attend BSU protest calling for greater administration response
Members of the Black Student Union – Ramya Sinha, Sage Okolo, Haleluya Wondwosen and Sofia Montgomery – led a protest on the steps of Memorial Hall Aug. 29. Photos by SAM ANDRUS Photo Editor
On Aug. 29, sitting on the steps of the very same building Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered a speech in 1961, a crowd of at least 100 Chapman students momentarily laid down their signs and bowed their heads as Black Student Union (BSU) President Ramya Sinha sung the Black national anthem through a mask and megaphone. After hitting the final note, she initiated an expressive speech detailing her disappointment in Chapman’s administration, particularly in regards to BSU’s attempts to communicate with them.
“(Struppa) had gone in his (Aug. 19) email, ‘I’m doing all these things, I’ve made a 12-point plan with BSU’ – no he hasn’t,” Sinha said, pacing back and forth across the concrete. “They didn’t even reach out to us to schedule a follow up meeting … For us, we can’t just take off our skin and just walk away. We can’t choose when we want to be activists; it’s our life. It’s every day.”
Nearly three months after BSU’s June 3 virtual town hall meeting, the student organization is restating the calls for action they initially proposed to President Daniele Struppa and Dean of Students Jerry Price. However, after not receiving a symbiotic flow of communication from administration on those items, BSU organized a protest on the steps of Memorial Hall and welcomed over 15 different speakers who conveyed their frustrations, most recently in response to law professor John Eastman’s widely controversial opinion piece in Newsweek.
“Our intention here today is to pressure President Struppa and the rest of the Chapman administration to call out and condemn racism, because we cannot foster an inclusive campus in which racism thrives,” said Sage Okolo, one of the BSU organizers at the event.
The protest called to question the campus’ hostility toward minority and LGBTQIA+ communities. In particular, speakers referenced not only Eastman, but the “The Birth of a Nation” poster being voted on its removal, former student Dayton Kingery shouting racist and homophobic slurs and the invitations to various right-wing commentators like Ben Shapiro to speak and be presented with a public stage on campus.
“Do not be a coward. Not everything is a teachable moment. Not everything is free speech. Racism does not become safer because your friend said it,” Okolo said. “Believe us when we say we are done. Believe us when we say we’ve had enough. Believe us when we say we have not been respected. As Black women, we are asking you to do one thing: listen to us. Hear us.”
Students brought signage that questioned the integrity of the university's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
BSU treasurer Haleluya Wondwosen voiced her concerns regarding the recent announcement of Chapman partnering with the Orange Police Department (OPD) to fund increased patrols in local neighborhoods and reduce the risk of off-campus partying during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wondwosen connected the move to how little progress BSU has made in collaborating with the administration, and said the act of increased police force showed that Chapman simply isn’t listening to its students of color, given the recent deaths of Black citizens at the hands of police.
“Why do you vehemently resist any sort of reform unless it negatively impacts Chapman's reputation?” Wondwosen said, directed at administration. “Is that all you’re concerned about?”
Struppa told The Panther he was happy to hear the protest was peaceful, and he supports the rights of students, faculty and staff to peacefully protest and express their views. In reference to community concern over the OPD partnership and the petitions that have followed it, Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications Jamie Ceman told The Panther that Chapman Public Safety officers can’t do the job of containing the coronavirus alone, as they are not police officers and are only authorized to patrol campus and university-owned properties.
“Our top priority is the health and safety of our students, faculty, staff and community, and we need to take every precaution to limit the spread of COVID-19,” Ceman wrote in an email to The Panther.
Despite sentiments of hopelessness and exhaustion, many speakers at the BSU protest celebrated the accomplishments that have been made toward diversity and inclusion. The first mandatory diversity and inclusion training for first-year students took place Aug. 29 and Lisa Leitz, the Delp-Wilkinson Endowed Chair in Peace Studies, said in a speech that a majority of faculty are standing in solidarity with BSU and announced that Chapman has promoted the Director of Diversity and Inclusion position to that of a vice presidential role. Search committee members are in the process of detailing responsibilities for this position, and will then actively look for qualified candidates who can more effectively promote diversity initiatives and elevate them on the university’s agenda.
“I want to say as loudly as I can that Eastman does not speak for Chapman’s faculty,” Leitz said at the event. “We must show the world that we know that Black lives more than matter. They are a cause for celebration.”
Other faculty members that briefly assumed the megaphone to speak were Presidential Fellow in Peace Studies Rozell “Prexy” Nesbitt and Associate Director of Student Community Support and Development Justin Riley. Both showered compliments upon BSU and its organizers for the work they’d done over the summer to push for a more inclusive campus.
“I’m an old man just watching this stuff now, but you all make me so happy that you’ve taken this stance,” Nesbitt said to the crowd. “Always bear in mind: the enemy we have is not about individuals. It’s about structures; it's about systems; it’s about embedded racism. This is much bigger than (Struppa). We are dealing with a monster in this country. This is one manifestation of that monster.