Student Occupation Continues at Howard University as Admin Considers Demands
“Nothing will stop us from demanding the change we deserve!”
Howard University is a historically black college in Washington, DC which has been struggling financially for a number of years. In 2014, the New York Times reported that the school had been downgraded by Moody’s.
A recent student occupation has been happening at the school, and has stretched on for days.
CNN reports:
Students have been occupying Howard’s administration building for 7 days now
The student occupation of the administration building at Howard University in Washington, D.C. was in its seventh day on Wednesday, with demonstrators drawing inspiration from the historically black college’s history of protest in their sit-in over misappropriated financial aid funds.
The protest, spearheaded by the student group HU Resist, continued even after the school’s board of trustees agreed over the weekend to meet one of the protesters’ demands in a bid to end an occupation that started on March 29.
“We have officially reached our 7th day occupying A Building!” HU Resist tweeted. “Because of our supporters and student participants we are able to continue to fight. Nothing will stop us from demanding the change we deserve!”
The university board agreed to the first of nine students demand — “adequate housing for all students under the age of 21 and extend the fall 2018 housing deposit deadline to May 1,” according to Alexis McKenney, a Howard student and lead organizer of HU Resist…
The protests started after an investigation found last year that some university employees were receiving grants from the school to attend classes while also receiving tuition remission, earning more money than their education cost and pocketing the difference. The university confirmed the results of the investigation, but did not say how much money may have been misappropriated.
The allegations came to light last week after blogging platform Medium posted an expose which has since been deleted.
Good morning. We have officially reached our 7th day occupying A Building! Because of our supporters and student participants we are able to continue to fight. Nothing will stop us from demanding the change we deserve! ❤✊???? #StudentPowerHU
— #StudentPowerHU (@HUResist) April 4, 2018
You might think this protest is all about the financial corruption, until you read the entire list of student demands, via WUSA:
- We demand that Howard University provide adequate housing for all students under the age of 21 and extend the Fall 2018 housing deposit deadline to May 1.
- We demand an immediate end to unsubstantiated tuition hikes and complete access to administrative salaries.
- We demand that Howard University actively fight rape culture on campus in an effort to prevent sexual assault.
- We demand that Howard University implement a grievance system to hold faculty and administrators accountable in their language and action toward students with marginalized identities.
- We demand that Howard University hire more counselors and implement an inclusive attendance policy that accounts for mental and emotional health issues.
- We demand the immediate disarming of campus police officers and the formation of a Police Oversight Committee controlled by students, faculty, staff and off-campus community representatives.
- We demand that Howard University allocate more resources toward combating food insecurity and gentrification within the LeDroit-Shaw community.
- We demand the immediate resignation of President Wayne A.I. Frederick and the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.
- We demand that students have the power to democratically influence the decision of the administration and the Board of Trustees by way of popular vote.
Protest leaders held a press conference this week and said that negotiations with the administration are continuing:
Who is in charge of this school? It sure doesn’t look like the administration is, and that’s the problem.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
So in a nutshell, (emphasis in ‘nut’) :
They want full control of the school.
Colleges breed and incubated this cancer and now it consumes them. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of a-holes. Problem is, they’re seeding our population with more and more of these useless sacks every year.
Touche!
This is chiseling the epitaph on Howard U’s tombstone.
I love the parts about fighting rape culture while disarming Campus Police.maybe the cops can fight rape culture by having a sit-in in the boys and girls’ rooms!
They already have a whistle.
I bet they also have vomit and urine. Which Democrats who are for gun control highly recommend.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/20/justice/colorado-rape-prevention-guidelines/index.html
“College women told to urinate or vomit to deter a rapist”
I guess vomiting might work, but what are the chances of being raped leaving a Taco Bell?
I bet smearing feces on yourself is also highly recommended by the DNC.
Personally, I prefer lead.
Lead is so 20th century.
OK, Tungsten if you prefer. Depleted Uranium, take your pick. But I say lead will do. Dinosaur that I am.
Momentum is the key when it comes to killing power. And mass is the vital component.
If velocity was the key to killing power, I could stop an elephant with a .22 bullet driven fast enough.
Now, somebody is going to come up with the many examples of elephants being killed with .22s. I’m aware of those. Notice I said stopping, not killing.
plata o plomo
Discriminating against the hearing deprived rapists.
The police will be armed with anti-rape whistles since they’ve been disarmed.
Proper Response : “Everyone who does not leave the Administration Building is Tresspassing and will be arrested by the real police. Any students arrested for tresspassing will be expelled. Any faculty arrested for tresspassing will be terminated immediately.”
The appropraite venue for greivances is not to simply plop down in the hallway and whine. If their claims are correct, they may have grounds for legal action, but mob action is not the way forward.
The deamnds regarding Progressive pablum need to be laughed at.
Would they even have that, though? I’m having trouble seeing how they’d have standing, but IANAL and I don’t know the requirements for a class action suit in the US. The students certainly have the right to be morally outraged that university employees were engaged in embezzlement, but doesn’t the university’s liability pretty much end at “we’ve uncovered embezzlement, we’ve terminated the employees responsible and filed criminal charges to recover the money” and call it a day?
I mean, if I ran a business and I ran out of widgets to sell because one of my employees was stealing them, do my customers have legal standing to sue me for not having enough widgets?
Good idea, which means the Lefties running Howard will never go along
That worked really well for one university. You should have seen their faces when reality set in.
Answer: “no”. If that answer is not acceptable, one concession could be made: campus admin will remain open for extended hours in order to streamline the withdrawal process.
How receptive will an employer be to a Howard degree? Mmmhmm.
The DMV, HUD, the EEOC…
I will lay dollars to doughnuts that in the Howard University student regulations it is a violation to disrupt the operation of the school. And that is exactly what these students are doing.
The university does not belong to the students. they are customers who are paying for an education. If they do not like HU, they can go elsewhere. Also, as customers, these students have no RIGHT to access to the financial records of the University, to have any say in the teachers and employees of the university or in how the university deals with them. These students certainly have no right to demand that the university suspend it police force, established to protect the student body, while simultaneously demanding that the university fight a “rape culture” of which there is evidence to suggest it even exists. And finally, as customers, these students do not have any right to influence the board of trustees, or anyone else associated with the school by a democratic vote.
These people are activists who are on a power trip and should be expelled for disrupting the operation of the university. There are plenty of other potential students who can obtain scholarships and grants in aid and who would probably be better students. Maybe they will resist and the armed police can arrest them and file criminal charges. Then they can all go back home and work at Mickey D’s.
This kinda reminds me of the Syrian Civil War – every side is horrible, and I want them all to lose.
Shut it down, bulldoze the buildings, and make a nice park for people to play frisbee with their doggy’s, Then at least the land can do some good for someone.
Food for the mind:
Among these “occupiers”, what is the ratio of “_____ Studies” majors to actual, real-life, job-worthy majors?
I believe if the HU President came into the area, politely asked everyone’s name, wrote it down and told them, also politely, that they had better be out of the building by closing time today or they would get a letter addressed to each individual student informing them that they were no longer a student at Howard University, the tactic would work.
“Nothing will stop us from demanding the change we deserve!”
Well, expulsion would. I bet…
An intresting solution. And, a very good one.
Howard is in a similar position to Oberlin. Enrollment is down, so they can’t risk either losing current students or detering future students. The inmates are in charge of the asylum and they know it. My prediction is that the only way to fix this problem is for about 10% of the colleges to cease to exist, and I bet more disappear from the top than the bottom. All of those years of using socialism to ignore supply-demand economics is going to come at a big price. And for those students who disrupted their school and the school failed, good luck getting into another one once colleges can again become selective.
Really makes one wonder about Hogg if he can’t get into college even with these favorable conditions.
Oh, stop!
Hogg has been accepted by several schools. If he re-applied to day to the ones that rejected him, he’d likely walk into those, as well.
If he’d reapply to he’d get accepted and THAT IS THE PROBLEM…what has he done to deserve the 2nd consideration except demonize those who disagree with him and play puppet to his masters?
Probably the same reason that Harvard was very keen to offer Natalie Portman a place in undergraduate studies: marketing the university to potential students. “Come to our university and rub shoulders with the famous and infamous.”
More like 75 to 80 percent need to disappear.
Ok, what possible problem do the actual occupiers have with the fictional occupation of Palestine? Occupations are now a good thing or a bad thing? I’ve lost track.
General rules:
White occupation: bad, non-white occupation: not bad.
Jews, even the black ones, are honorary whites for this determination.
We demand that Howard University provide adequate housing for all students under the age of 21 and extend the Fall 2018 housing deposit deadline to May 1.
______________________
So basically they want free housing. How many students would pay their housing deposit if they didn’t get the bill for it until nearly the end of the spring semester?
As for the “food insecurity” issue (and what a bullshit term that is), they all look pretty well fed to me. In fact, they look overfed.
There is a McDonalds very close to the campus.
Unoccupied. Preoccupied.
Today’s millennial is only interested in creating a chaotic legal system or turn it against itself.
“Change we deserve…..”
Hmm…so they don’t feel they deserve to be properly protected by gummint-authorized officers who would be able to shoot back at some armed criminal on campus.
Oooookaaayy….
May your wish come true.
I don’t think they are actually activists. I think they are stupid affirmative action students who know they can’t do the academic work so cover with diversions. When they fail or drop out they will claim it was because they were oppressed or suffered from microaggressions.
When we had more active racial discrimination in this country, the historically Black universities and colleges got the best and brightest of the Black students. With desegregation, those more capable Black students are going to formerly all-White schools. The students who are left don’t even qualify as affirmative-action admitted students at mediocre formerly all-White schools. So it is much worse than you imagine.
We are victims of affirmative action with the G. W. Bush presidency. The elites didn’t give up their seats in top schools, the middle class Whites did. Some middle class White guy, who would have made a better president, gave up his seat for an affirmative action student. We got W.
“G. W. Bush presidency.” WTF.
Rape culture? Is that the thing they do in a petri dish? 🙂
Hey, why aren’t you guys writing about the teachers’ strike in Oklahoma? Instead of this nonsense? Schools don’t have books, teachers are paid so little that they quit. Isn’t that important?
Ah yes, teachers striking in Oklahoma.
Now, these teachers all work for independent or dependent school systems, none of which are part of the state government. So, exactly why are they marching en-mass on the state capital? The state partially funds local school districts usually using federal funding, but, as in most states, these school districts are funded by local taxation. School systems are expected to fund their own operations with these taxes. So, why do the teachers expect the state government to fund them? If the local school system does not have the money to fund its schools, then it is just going to have to raise taxes.
Of course, what is missing from this story is that the state allocated additional education funds [$420 million] specifically for teacher salaries for 2018-2019. But, according to the teacher’s union, this is not enough. They want more and want it guaranteed, by the state, for multiple years. So, they are using the “needs of the chil’ren” to justify more money from the state.
It’s my understanding that they’ve been underpaid for years if not decades, so that’s hardly unreasonable. Teachers tend to put up with a lot of crap, if they’re pissed off enough to strike then it’s for a reason. Or so a teacher friend of mine tells me
A lot of professional are, or feel that they are, underpaid. And, they are free to strike for higher wages. But, let’s be honest about this whole thing. In this case, these teachers are not demanding that the people that they work for, the local school boards, increase their salaries, they are demanding that the state legislature do it. And, they are doing it after the state legislature already authorized $420 million dollars to go to local school boards, earmarked for local teacher’s salary increases. But, when you see the teachers on television, they are all saying that they are on strike for more education money so that the chil’ren can have new books, iPads and school supplies. They seem to forget to mention that they also want more money.
I dunno, they seem to be saying both. But you know, they could always all quit. I’m sure an uneducated workforce bodes well for this country, as automation takes more and more low-skill jobs..
It’ll at least be interesting to see how all this plays out. Mainstream media sure doesn’t want to talk about it
“It’s my understanding that they’ve been underpaid for years if not decades, so that’s hardly unreasonable.”
Didn’t they look at a salary schedule while they were in college? For public schools those are public information, frequently on the school district website. Didn’t they know what the salary schedule was before they interviewed for that job, or signed a contract? Or renewed their contract. Sorry Charlie–they don’t get sympathy from me. They probably relished being part-time social studies teachers, and full-time football coaches. Going into many jobs is about choosing a life-style. They wanted to be influencing our children. Now they want more money. Boo-hoo. Decriminalize school truancy. For the children.
Wow, this is incredibly callous. But see my other comment – they could of course all quit
“Callous”? Maybe. True, more than likely. They either knew what they were getting into, or should have known. Too bad, so sad. While there are some genuine excellent teachers out there, there are a good number who got into it for reasons other than money. Now that the money isn’t as good as they had hoped, and their other reasons, like the glory of being the football coach, have dimmed, they are dissatisfied. Find new teachers. Or, decriminalize school truancy.
How many female teachers with children pay a substantial amount of their income on child care? Let them stay home, raise their own kids, and be happier.
Maybe they should start by getting rid of the union(s).
Then get rid of all the dead weight kept in place by the unions so that they can earn respect as professionals, not a political mass of unionized laborers.
But they have really good pensions.
More importantly, why hasn’t the Governor fired all those public school administrations?
The students are making demands as if they are in power, control and own the university.
I would love for the Howard University Foundation to release the percentage of students who have graduated who have contributed to the University through gifts. Even one time gifts.
Sadly, at many universities, the percentage is very, very low.
If more students were to give, even one time, it would enhance Howard University as that is a criteria used in the formula that determines the ranking in the various listings.
The students are short termers
That does not take away from the outrage sparked by staff who abused privileges.
Best outcome I can see here is for the Administration to come to the petulant spoiled pre-adolescent twits….I mean protesters and give the following comment.
“After reviewing your demands and in light of our current fiscal crisis we have decided to the best option is to close the school. We can not meet the demands as they are fiscally feasible. We wish you all the best in the future, Dorms will remain open for 30 days to give students ample time to move and all classes from this semester will be marked as “withdrawn” so as not to affect overall GPA’s.”
Grr, that was supposed to say “fically unfeasible”.
“fiscally unfeasible”….I give up!
My keyboard fights me, too.
Actually this is the best response I have seen to these entitled little snots.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=university+tells+students+to+get+out+or+be+arrested&view=detail&mid=D592A159964F6963D80ED592A159964F6963D80E&FORM=VIRE
Oh, it is the little snots students, not the little snots striking public school teachers. Excellent video. Thank you. There is a reason I am formerly of Wisconsin and Colorado, two liberal states, and now in Texas. (The ocean beach walking in Oklahoma, and sailing, are limited. In Texas I live 3 miles from the bay, and 30 miles from where Harvey hit once or twice.) The South isn’t going to put up with nonsense. I would hope the Governor of Oklahoma encourages the striking teachers to return to their classes, not get paid for the days out, and learn to behave, or seek new employment.
It has been my experience when it comes to public sector union strikes the one’s bitching the loudest are the ones who really need to be fired.
I just watched the video, and observed the black girl on the couch. Her right arm remained in the same position throughout, and her eyes seldom left her precious phone. If I had been that school administrator, it would have taken a lot of my self-control to keep from reaching over and batting it out of her hand.
That photo: the brains of the operation.
A fool of michelleobamaian proportions.
A Howard diploma (like Oberlin) was once an honor. But to any sensible employer, they are now warning signs on sheepskin.
True, for sensible employers.
Most of these occupiers will get a welfare job, otherwise known as working for the government. They have zero skills and must work in a place that needs zero skill.
they say we’re young and we don’t know we won’t find out until we grow …
Someday, it will set in that college is a 4 years interlude before your life starts.
If HU is so bad … why didn’t these folks go to a better college ?
And who or what are “students with marginalized identities” ?
Nothing will stop us from demanding the change we deserve!
True. You are making your degree worth your two cents.
So the administration of HU lets a dozen or so “students” damage the reputation and degrees of thousands of HU students and graduates. Nice. The change that is needed is new HU leadership at the top starting at noon today. Then, the real students can get back to their education.
On display:
— More leftist damage
— More weak “leadership”
Just close the doors and accept the inevitable.
If Howard goes the way of Oberlin, they will just be a footnote in academic history. Too bad, because when the university was founded, the singular – and most important – aspect of that once-noble institution was its inherent dignity and the determination of this administration to actually stamp that this letter
IIRC, Howard University has been in decline for quite some time.
This is one Leftist extortion play, that I hope last a very long time.