Michigan State University students seek action after racial incidents

Mathew Miller

Earlier this month, hundreds of Michigan State University students turned out for an emergency town hall meeting held in response to three racially charged incidents: racial epithets written on a student's door and scrawled on a dormitory wall, a black doll found hanging in a string of beads.

The university's Black Student Alliance has since been keeping a tally, and they arrived at a meeting of MSU's Board of Trustees on Friday with thick packets detailing the original three incidents and seven that have happened since.

"We do not feel safe here at this university," said BSA President Mario Lemons, addressing the board.

"This university needs to take initiative to make sure they are addressing these concerns."

The notes Shaina Simpson found on her door started with a racial epithet. They made reference to the fact that she is an intercultural aide, one of the students employed in MSU's residence halls to help others make the transition to a more diverse environment. Actually, they said she was "aide with AIDS."

"This comes in a day and age when racism is no longer supposed to be an issue," she told the board, "and yet just last week, these events occurred."

The students had come with suggestions: creating a free-standing Multicultural Center to replace the one in the basement of the MSU Union, give cultural sensitivity training to incoming freshmen during summer orientation, bolster the intercultural aides program.

So far, Lemons said, the university's leaders have been "trying to act like they're doing things."

Paulette Granberry Russell, director of MSU's Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, agreed that the university should be doing more

"I don't think there is any disagreement between administration and students that there is a need to educate the campus community more broadly on the ways we can create a more hospitable, welcoming campus community," she said.

MSU President Lou Anna Simon has addressed the incidents in two public letters.

In the most recent letter, sent Tuesday, Simon said she was "outraged" by the incidents but heartened by the ensuing dialogue.

Several incidents still are under investigation by MSU police, but at least one seems not to have been meant as racial intimidation.

Sgt. Florene McGlothian Taylor said the black doll found hanging in beads had been purchased three years ago in New Orleans as a sort of prosperity charm by a group of students who were in the process of applying for a grant.

It had been hanging in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences for some time before it was discovered by a black student this fall, she said. -LSJ.com