First, look. In the Daily Press, no less:
dailypress.com
HU students demand changes from school leaders
In an "open letter" in the campus paper, two dozen students state that students' "rights have been eroded, their morale diminished."
By Kim O'Brien Root 928-6473
November 16, 2007
HAMPTON —
Student leaders at Hampton University blasted school officials for their treatment of students and demanded changes in a full-page "open letter" that appeared in HU's campus newspaper Wednesday.
The letter, on Page 5 of the student-run Hampton Script, was signed by 26 student leaders — including the president of the Student Government Association, the Script's editor and the presidents of the senior, junior, sophomore and freshman classes. It was written out of "concerns for our future alma mater, its longevity, and its continued reputation as an elite institution."
"The students of Hampton University have silently suffered while their rights have been eroded, their morale diminished, and their educational and social experiences jeopardized," the letter reads.
Among the claims, the students said they've witnessed mistreatment of students, disregard for university policies by school officials, exploitation of students, mishandling of student handbooks, misappropriation of funds within student organizations' accounts and "systematic removal of democratic safeguards protecting student rights."
The letter demanded that the school's student affairs division be restructured and its leadership reviewed, and that the university's student handbook be suspended.
The student leaders also asked for a meeting with HU President William R. Harvey, giving him a deadline of 5 p.m. Thursday to respond to a request for a meeting if he wanted to resolve the situation.
The time came and went Thursday. Mychal Smith, editor of the Hampton Script, said shortly after 5 p.m. that there hadn't been a response from the administration.
Signers of the letter, including Darrian Mack, president of the Student Government Association, wouldn't comment Thursday.
Harvey was unavailable, said Yuri Rodgers Milligan, HU's director of university relations. Earlier in the day, Milligan said she "couldn't say" whether there would be a response.
"The university has a grievance process," Milligan said. "If students have a grievance, there's a process they can go through."
Among those processes, Milligan said: Every month, student leaders meet with the administrative council, which includes the president, vice president for student affairs and general counsel.
The last administrative council meeting was Oct. 23, and student leaders also met with the university's Board of Trustees on Oct. 26. Milligan said she wasn't aware of any of the issues mentioned in the letter coming out.
"Obviously it wasn't to this magnitude," Milligan said.
Wednesday's letter requested a formal, non-administrative council meeting, but details of what that meeting would entail were not clear.
The letter is the latest in the squabbles among Hampton University students, teachers and administrators over the years.
Last year, a journalism teacher resigned because he said the school had a repressive attitude toward the First Amendment. Four years earlier, the then-journalism school director resigned over differences with Harvey over whether students would be allowed to practice free speech and press freedom in their reporting.
In 2005, a student faced expulsion after being accused of handing out fliers about the Bush administration, genocide in Sudan, AIDS awareness and homophobia. Seven students who participated in a walkout were disciplined for not getting approval for the event.
And in 2003, HU administrators confiscated an issue of the Script after it ran a letter from Acting President and Provost JoAnn Haysbert on the newspaper's third page rather than on the first page, as she had requested.
Several students outside a Burger King and a laundromat on Settlers Landing Road near HU said Thursday that the letter in the Script was the talk of campus and had been posted in dorms. One sophomore political science major, who declined to give her name out of fear she'd be disciplined, said she was glad to see student leaders taking a stand.
Another student said she's heard complaints about the administration ever since she came to HU from California this year as a new, five-year MBA student. Among the complaints she said she's heard: Lack of organization and confusion about exactly where money goes.
"Everyone knows the 'Hampton run-around'," said 20-year-old Cristina Nataniel, a junior biology major from Maryland. "That's a quote. Everyone uses it."
Fellow junior Folasade Gallimore, 19, a biology major from New Jersey, said the student handbook this year only appeared on the university's Web site — which made some worry that school officials could change it at will without notifying anyone, she said. But she said she doubted the Script letter would have an effect.
"I don't think Dr. Harvey's going to do anything," Gallimore said. "He's so stuck in his ways."
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Well. I'll be. Hampton students are definitely getting more riled up, less complacent, and are seriously tryna get some shit started. There's a new wave coming over Hampton--how ironic that it's happening in my last year here when my thoughts are set far beyond this tiny locale that I have refused to allow to define me for the past 3 years.
Speaking out against injustice is always an act of bravery, but it's so necessary. Like the great Audre Lorde said,
"Death...is the final silence. And that may be coming quickly now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else’s words...I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. The transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation and that always seems fraught with danger...In the cause of silence, each one of us draws the face of her own fear—fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But, most of all, I think, we fear the very visibility without which we also cannot truly live. And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength...It is necessary to teach by living and speaking those truths which we believe and know beyond understanding...And it is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But, we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, or had I maintained an oath of silence my whole life long for safety, I would still have suffered. And, I would still die."
Yea. That's why I stand behind the student leaders, even as my sights are far, FAR beyond Hampton at the moment.
But anyhoo, I discovered Margaret Cho--I watched her stand-up routine called "Assassin" that I checked out from the HU library. (The HU library actually has some surprisingly good material sometimes.)
Outstanding! I love her! She's great. She's a married (to a man) bisexual Korean-American woman who is one of the LGBT community's fiercest public champions, and she gets questioned or labeled hypocrite by some media forces because of it. Some folk can't quite fathom how you can be so dedicated to the fight for equality and not be in a primary relationship with someone of the same sex. How you can still claim the LGBT community as your own even when partnered with someone of the opposite gender.
Well, besides the fact that she id's as bi, gay rights is not a "gay" issue. Fighting for gay rights is an expression of compassion, of wanting certain gestures of basic human decency extended to everyone. You don't have to be gay or be partnered with someone of your own sex to feel a deep need to undo the damage of homophobia and heterosexism. You just have to want equality. You just have to see yourself reflected in all people, no matter what superficial differences exist between you.
This hit home for me because a few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that he would stop being my friend if I ended up having a primary marriage relationship with a man as opposed to a woman, because I wouldn't "understand" the struggle for equality anymore. That I would be changed somehow, my activism and committment to LGBT compromised.
Bullshit.
First of all, ANY person who is partnered with me would have to measure up to certain standards. One of these standards is the committment to undo any homophobic or heterosexist conditioning that he or she has acquired as a result of living in an unequal, fucked-up society. I constantly seek to undo the damage within myself, so I could only be with someone who was also actively working on doing the same thing.
Secondly, what? As my friend, I would hope that you would be happy for me when I find love period, regardless of the form it packages itself in.
But alas, people are fickle, fickle beings. Maybe he won't really end our friendship over something like that, should it come to pass. But it's definitely a hurtful thing to say to someone.
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