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Annoyed Howard University Students Claim Local DC Residents Using Campus as a Dog Park

Annoyed Howard University Students Claim Local DC Residents Using Campus as a Dog Park

“you feel so entitled that you’re just going to walk your dog there?”

Students claim locals are abusing the campus by walking their dogs there.

The Hill reports:

DC resident suggests Howard University move campus after students complain yard is being used as dog park

A Washington, D.C., man is drawing backlash on social media for suggesting Howard University move after students complained that a popular area of campus was being used as a dog park.

Sean Grubbs-Robishaw made the remarks during an interview with a local Fox affiliate, telling the outlet that students are “in part of D.C. so they have to work within D.C.”

“So if they don’t want to be within D.C., then move the campus,” Grubbs-Robishaw said. “I think we need to work together and I don’t think it should be ‘he or he’ or ‘they or he,’” situation, he continued. “It’s our community and that’s how it should be.”

Students at the historically black university had complained about an increasing number of nearby residents using The Yard, an area at the heart of Howard’s campus, as a dog park. Some, according to local outlet DCist, attributed the activity to a side effect of gentrification in the surrounding neighborhoods.

“I find it very disrespectful,” Briana Littlejohn, who is a graduating senior at the university, told the outlet.

“You know this is a university. You know this is a historically black university. And you feel so entitled that you’re just going to walk your dog there?” she said.

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Comments

As a private university, they do have a right to bar dog walkers if the university (not the whiny students) so chooses.

However, I think most of the residents are just ignorant of that fact. Of course, the HBCU students are going to make it about race and disrespect. I’m surprised privilege didn’t enter the conversation (they already used gentrification, which is a similar buzz word). The race baiters sure do have their buzzword toolkit handy, don’t they?

And of course there is that other pesky side effect of gentrification of making the neighborhoods safer and cleaner.

thegardentool | April 23, 2019 at 12:33 am

As a DC resident in which several of my family members have graduated from Howard. The yard is a sacred place dating back over 150 years.The yard is kept pristine for obvious reasons such as special engagements and ceremonies and the trees are sacred as well, planted by ancestors of the schools. It’s it also a place to the students to reflect and study when it’s nice outside. The students feel that the yard is being disrespected with outsiders bringing their dogs to relieve themselves on the grass, in which some do not clean it up. Cleanin it up I’d still not acceptable due to residue left in the grass from their droppings. Furthermore other residents have been observed jogging on the grass which is still not acceptable. Therefore if the students can follow these rules, then why the residents cannot? I’m glad the President of Howard finally issued an directive yesterday that people leave their dogs home or off of Howards property. This is a no brainer, just keep the dogs out. I believe the next step will be to secure the yard only for the students. They never had this problem before until recently.