Occidental College is a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles, but despite only having a total enrollment of roughly 2,200 students, they’re making a huge change on campus.
Students have been occupying the campus’s administration building in hopes of getting the school’s president to resign, and now they’re getting support from their professors.
Several hundred activists have been partaking in the sit-in for four days, and faculty have unanimously approved a resolution expressing “full support of the Oxy United for Black Liberation students’ actions and the demands for the culture around racism and diversity in the institution to change.”
According to Huffington Post,
Oxy United for Black Liberation is a coalition created by members of Oxy’s Black Student Alliance and a group called Coalition at Oxy for Diversity and Equity, or CODE. The students have said they plan to occupy the administration building until at least Friday, or until President Jonathan Veitch accepts their demands. At least 400 students, at the school of 2,000, have participated, according to organizers.
https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/667590726058967040
Last week, students presented administration with a list of 14 demands, including resignation of the school’s president Jonathan Veitch, particularly because of his lack of protection of marginalized students and sexual assault victims on campus.
Veitch sent a campus-wide email Wednesday night, co-signed by Board of Trustees Chairman Chris Calkins and Dean of Faculty Jorge Gonzalez, promising students that the demands would be fulfilled, except for one: his resignation.
Instead, he wants to establish “a neutral mediator to work with administration, faculty, and student representatives to help restore trust and pathways for dialogue.”
Students, however, aren’t buying it. “He writes these emails about how there’s a great discourse, but there’s zero discourse,” student activist Cruz Riley says. “There’s been dialogue forever and no change, and that’s the current reasoning for the unwillingness to negotiate, because we’ve been negotiating and there’s no change.”
We have a feeling this is going to go on for a while – everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AHJ1aIFuTk
