Advocacy for accountability
CMU students protest and start petition to address CMU student and staff member saying racial slurs
Central Michigan University students pose with their signs during a stationed protest Wednesday, April 17, on the Bovee UC front lawn.
Rain and thunder loomed over students as they stood outside the Bovee University Center for an Anti-Racist protest Wednesday, as a result of recent events. As the rain picked up, students filed into the UC and continued the protest with the university’s support.
The protests were sparked by two incidents that happened in quick succession: the circulation of a video involving CMU students on identifiable CMU property using racial slurs, and the same racial slurs being used by a staff member at a listening session for the original issue.
“This video, like all incidents of bias and discrimination, is harmful to our community,” President Bob Davies wrote in a university-wide email Monday afternoon. “Instead of fostering a sense of belonging, they can make our students, faculty and staff feel unwelcome or unsafe.
“We want to make CMU a community where everyone feels welcome, supported and empowered to succeed.”
But the listening session that followed prompted another mass email from the office of the president — this time an apology.
“I learned late this afternoon that, during today’s discussion, a CMU staff member used an inappropriate and highly offensive word,” Davies wrote in a second email Monday evening. “I am deeply sorry that this happened, especially because it happened in a space that was intended to be a safe space for dialogue and support.
“Students have every right to feel frustrated, angry and hurt. That use of discriminatory, offensive and racist language has no place in our university community.”
KB Chapman is a freshman transfer student at CMU coming from a historically Black university, Virginia State University.
With it being Chapman’s first time on a predominantly white campus, when she first heard about the racial slur videos, she said she knew it was going to happen. But she did not expect it to happen this quick after being here for four months.
While in attendance at the listening session on April 15 where the CMU staff member repeated the racial slur, in that moment, Chapman said she felt that students needed to start a petition. So she did.
“At first, when we were listening, before she (the staff member) spoke, we were listening and we tried to understand them,” she said. “But once you said the N word, it caused a big gray cloud in the room; all over again it felt like we went nowhere.“
The petition Chapman started is to advocate for a policy to be put in place at CMU for racial discrimination. It currently has about 1,800 signatures.
“No matter if it is a racial community … no matter if it‘s a gender community, no matter if it’s a disability community, they need to be expelled, or fired, or whatever they need to do,” Chapman said.
In an email from Davies on April 17, providing an update on actions that have been taken and the next steps, he mentioned the petition and demonstrations from students and said they have offered additional spaces to be seen, heard and supported.
“As we use your recommendations to strengthen our offerings and our community, we will be intentional about finding multiple ways to provide updates on our progress,” he wrote in the email.
After the listening session that took place on the evening of April 16, Chapman said she felt like the university now understands where students are coming from because the Board of Trustees was there.
She said one trustee spoke up and said they are trying to help students, and they will not allow these issues to slide.
“But we felt like as a whole, they need a policy change,” Chapman said. “Because there is no way that you are still racist and discriminating against a whole community, and you are getting away with it. … That’s why they (the students in the video) did it. They saw it happen, and (thought): ‘Oh we are gonna get away with this stuff, nobody cares’. No, we do care, and now you’re gonna get what you deserve.”
In the Wednesday email from Davies, he said the individual in the video identified as a CMU student has been suspended and is no longer on campus, and the staff member has been separated from the university.
According to Chapman, on April 16, more videos surfaced of other CMU students saying racial slurs, but she is not sure the university has been made aware since they just came out.
Chapman said CMU is trying its hardest to address the situation it knows about.
“But if a policy was in place for racial discrimination at CMU, situations like this won’t happen again,” she said.
In his April 17 email, from Davies wrote that changes to policies, processes and procedures do not happen as quickly or as visibly as the university would like, and there is much work to be done.
“I want to offer assurance that this work is happening, and that it will continue to happen, and that we will never stop looking for ways to make our community more inclusive, supportive and empowering,” he wrote in that Wednesday message.
Professor Alan Rudy teaches in the School of Politics, Society, Justice and Public Service, and said his students have noticed that fewer minority students returned after the pandemic — and efforts to recruit them have had “low levels” of success since 2021.
According to the university’s fall semester enrollment statistics, the number of BIPOC students has fallen since the pandemic.
• 2019: 4,240 BIPOC students
• 2020: 3,867 BIPOC students
• 2021: 3,299 BIPOC students
• 2022: 2,949 BIPOC students
• 2023: 2,681 BIPOC students
That change does happen at the same time as an overall enrollment decline, but the average decline in overall enrollment is close to 6.5%. For BIPOC students, that average is closer to 10.5%.
“Many students have noticed how few U.S.-born faculty of color teach at CMU and were not surprised when they learned that the university had more — especially in CLASS — a decade or more ago. But those lines were not filled - and their courses have been taught less often, - as minority faculty retired or left,” he said.
Rudy pointed out that this is not an isolated issue, and it may be a larger consequence of failed branding.
“I do believe that the student videos and offensive mis-step in the listening session are an indication of a decade or more of crisis management that … has de-emphasized building a culture of equity and justice; one that not only recognizes but seeks our shared humanity across difference” Rudy said.
“Nothing the university has done has caused either incident, but the university has done far too little to reduce the likelihood of such incidents.”
Rudy said the statement in the “We Do” campaign erases faculty, student-faculty collaboration, social justice, critical thinking, global competencies and environmental sustainability.
“We say ‘We Do’ things and get jobs, but what it is exactly we do, how we do it, and with whom and with what meaningful results is not clear in the branding,” he said. “CMU must change with the times by transforming, rather than eliminating what made the university special in the past.“
Rudy advised that students stick together, support each other and work together to create change.
“We all spend far too much time alone with ourselves or feeling alone in classes, where we live, where we work, and as we shop and exercise,” he said. “It’s a risk to meet and collaborate with others, and it takes time to build real connections and shared activities, but those things, those relationships, those social processes are the spice of life."
