Following two controversial incidents of professors using a racial slur while teaching, dozens of University of Oklahoma students staged a sit-in Wednesday outside the OU’s president’s office.

Organized by the Black Emergency Response Team, students sat outside of interim President Joseph Harroz’s office with signs demanding action and calling for the resignation of OU Provost Kyle Harper.

One of the signs said “‘Sorry’ does not undo years of historical trauma.”

Demands from the group also include a semester-long class focused on diversity, and a new multicultural center that will feature meeting spaces for marginalized students, common areas, study rooms and a Popeyes restaurant.

Students said they will be sitting at Evans Hall until their demands are met. The Black Emergency Response Team said many members would go on a hunger strike.

“To the upper administration: there will be no meetings,” said Miles Francisco, co-director of BERT, in a demand letter. “You either meet our demands or you starve us of our freedom. Join us.”

Harroz and Harper were not in their offices around noon Wednesday.

In a statement, the university said it has has received BERT’s list of demands and is "comparing it with OU’s diversity, equity and inclusion plan, efforts to date, and the action items the university is actively working to implement."

RELATED TO THIS STORY

Video: OU students host a sit-in at Evans Hall after two different professors used a racial slur in class

The protest was in response to two recent events at OU when two professors used a derogatory word while teaching.

Earlier this week, Kathleen Brosnan, an OU faculty member in the history department, said the n-word multiple times while reading from a 1920's U.S. Senate document.

Peter Gade, director of graduate studies for the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication and Gaylord Family endowed chair, used the N-word while comparing its usage to the phrase “OK, boomer.”

Earlier this week in a letter to the campus community, Harroz said faculty, staff and administrators will be required to complete a new diversity, equity, and inclusion training regimen.

"This training will address our implicit bias, it will force us to consider our words and actions and the implications that follow, and more," Harroz stated. "While students already engage in this type of training, for the first time our faculty and staff will be required to participate, as well."

On Wednesday, student protesters sat quietly in Evans Hall, either looking at their phones, studying on laptops or talking to each other. In various spots there was food, snacks and water.

Francisco said the students want a signed resignation letter from Harper, and a signed contract from top administrators, including Harroz, affirming a timeline to meet student demands.

“We will be sitting in Evans Hall permanently until these demands are met,” Francisco said.

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Evans Hall is an administrative building that typically closes at 5 p.m. Administrators told students those who chose to stay after could do so, but no additional people would be let in after closing, and once someone left, they would not be allowed back in.

Security was to remain on site, along with members of the divisions of student affairs and diversity, equity and inclusion, administrators said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39660568)

These fucking boomers have been trying to make this false equivalency now for months.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39660778)

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/ohio-state-turns-the-concept-of-safe-space-against-student-protesters/478221/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39661788)

c/p for anyone out of articles

Politics

Ohio State Turns the Concept of 'Safe Space' Against Student Protesters

Activists were cleared from a building by officials who claimed that they were making university employees feel scared.

Conor Friedersdorf

April 14, 2016

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At Ohio State last week, a sit-in and protest inside a university building was cut short when students were warned that they would be forcibly removed by police, arrested, and possibly expelled if they did not vacate the premises within a few hours, by 5 a.m.

Here’s video of an administrative messenger relaying the warning to the protesters:

I’m usually skeptical of any decision to call the police on peaceful protesters or to expel students. The video itself doesn’t display any evidence that such actions were justified in this case, although the full facts of the incident are still emerging. And there’s a chance the administrators were bluffing.

Regardless, this video is noteworthy for two reasons. The first is the manner adopted by the main messenger, which is a common one for real-world authority figures—he is respectful, blunt, and not particularly apologetic or deferential—but I do not recall seeing other college administrators adopt it. His words:

If you are students, and I think the vast majority of you are, I want you to understand that you are violating the student code of conduct. As dictated to me by [university president] Dr. Drake 15 minutes ago to me on the phone, we have chosen to try to work with you this evening because we respect you. This is your university.

And we want to have dialogue. We want the dialogue to extend beyond tonight. But if you refuse to leave, then you will be charged with a student code of conduct violation.And I’m telling you this now because I want you to have good thought and careful consideration. If you’re here at 5 a.m. we will clear the building and you will be arrested. And we will give you the opportunity to go to jail for your beliefs. Our police officers will physically pick you up, take you to a paddywagon, and take you to be jail.

Lots of college administrators decide to clear protests with force—recall the pepper-spraying cop at UC Davis, for example—but taking a preemptive, hardline position, bluntly and transparently, is a striking departure from other occupations I’ve seen.

But I’m equally fascinated by the justification that the university’s messenger offers to the students to explain why Ohio State leaders decided on the hardline approach: He accuses the students of denying a safe space to the workers in the building!

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Here’s how he put it:

Our goal, because I want you to understand why we would do something like this—I didn’t think we were going to—but the consensus of university leaders is that the people who work in this building should be protected also.

They come to work around 7 o’clock. Do you remember when you all made the rush down there and chanted to the folks outside the doors a minute ago?

That scared people.

That elicited disbelief from protesters. Who was scared, they scoffed, the police officers with guns? Said the university messenger, “If you refuse to understand what I’m trying to tell you—I’m not going to answer that question,” meaning he refused to say who it scared. Soon after, his sidekick steps in, saying, “It would scare employees who are wanting to do their work in this building.” Added the first messenger, “The employees who work past five o’clock left early this evening. Do you know why? Because they were scared you were going to do something.”

Said messenger two, “That’s the truth you guys. I talked to several of them when they walked out of here.” Their consensus position: “The people in this building have a right to a safe environment, and to an environment where their jobs won’t be interrupted.”

Appealing to the safety and fear of staff in this way is something else I’ve never seen. But I suspect that it will be used against student protesters in the future. In my work defending free speech, I’ve repeatedly noted how speech codes implemented in the late 1980s and early 90s with the intention of protecting black students were ultimately used to charge and punish more black students than white students.

Insofar as campus concepts like safe spaces, microaggressions, and claims of trauma over minor altercations spread from activist culture to campus culture, the powerful will inevitably make use of them. Where sensitivity to harm and subjective discomfort are king, and denying someone “a safe space” is verboten, folks standing in groups, confrontationally shouting out demands, will not fare well. When convenient, administrators will declare them scary and unfit for the safe space, exploiting how verboten it is to challenge anyone who says they feel afraid.

In cases like this one, it won’t matter that one of the least scary experiences in the world is walking into a university administration building at 7 a.m., well-rested and ready for work, to be greeted by a bunch of exhausted 18-year-old OSU students groggily looking up from the corner where they curled up with college hoodies as pillows. After years of reporting on occupations like this one, I’ve never heard of even one case of a college staff member of administrator coming away with even a scratch. Yet in the name of preserving “safe space,” these protesters were evicted.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Conor Friedersdorf is a California-based staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__iQGa0OkIs&feature=emb_logo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39661800)

“ And we will give you the opportunity to go to jail for your beliefs. Our police officers will physically pick you up, take you to a paddywagon, and take you to be jail.”

“ And we will give you the opportunity to go to jail for your beliefs. Our police officers will physically pick you up, take you to a paddywagon, and take you to be jail.”

“ And we will give you the opportunity to go to jail for your beliefs. Our police officers will physically pick you up, take you to a paddywagon, and take you to be jail.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39661888)

maybe the original letter JUST called for a large popeyes as the multicultural center?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662314)

http://ou.edu/scheduling/spaces/ac/htcc

http://ou.edu/scheduling/spaces/ac/jtmc

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662328)

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=9ba3a008-dc56-465c-91ef-46244992b36e&cp=35.388861~-97.428838&lvl=16&imgid=eda65f6b-8417-4dea-b415-e58599133179&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662488)

Priority of space is given in the following order (starting with the highest priority):

1. Black Student Association, Henderson Scholars Program, National Pan-Hellenic Council, NHPC Individual chapters

These groups may reserve space at any time in the JTMC for up to 2 years in advance.

2. RSOs registered under the categories: Cultural or Multicultural Greek Council , OU Cousins

These groups may reserve space starting the second Tuesday in April for the upcoming year. Space reservations may be made up to 1 year in advance.

3. Campus Activities Council, Interfraternity Council, Independent Greek Council, Panhellenic Association, Union Programming Board

These groups may reserve space on a semesterly basis. Space reservations will be allowed for the respective semester on the Saturday after the first week of classes have completed.

4. All other RSOs and university departments.

These groups may reserve space on a semesterly basis. Space reservations will be allowed for the respective semester on the Saturday after the first week of classes have completed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662487)

From a 2005 interview in Boston magazine with John Silber (who died in 2012), about student protests in the 1970s and ’80s when he was president of Boston University:

Then they put up the shacks. I told the police, “Go ask them three questions: Do you have a title to the property? (They built them on our property, not theirs.) Do you have a building permit? We have to have building permits. Have you got a clearance with the historical commission, because this is a historical district? If the answer is no to those three questions, then you tell them, ‘We’ll give you about 15 minutes to remove your shanty. And if you don’t, you’ll be arrested.’ ” I said, “Now, none of them are going to remove their shanty, so you’re going to have to arrest them. But I want you to be very gentle, and I want you to take them to the paddy wagon singing, ‘It’s just a shanty in old shanty town.’ ” Because one point I want to get across to these students is, I do not take them seriously. This is not some very deeply felt, high moral cause on their part; this is showboating of a very insincere kind by most of these students, and I want them to understand that I see through their pretensions.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662375)

https://twitter.com/Kareem_Owheat/status/1233037809264549888

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662395)

they were admitted not because of their test scores or school records but rather because of their race and ethnic heritage. that's what these students bring to the table. blackness, not scholarship. that was the bargain.

so having admitted them because they will contribute their racial identity, how can the university suddenly ignore the contribution that was the very basis for admitting them? it can't. the university has to let them be who they are and help them offer the university community the one thing of value that the university deliberately selected: blackness. that's the bargain the university struck when it admitted them. the students are just holding the university to the bargain.

the protesters are right. where dat Popeye's at?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4454672&forum_id=2#39662470)