Responding to Hate - Standing for Justice

About two weeks ago, this letter was sent out from Rollin Richmond:

Memo from the President - Responding to Hate - Standing for Justice

The Anti Bias/Anti-Hate Subcommittee of the Diversity Plan Action Council asked me to transmit this e-mail message to you. Please know that it has my full support.

Rollin C. Richmond
President

Dear Campus Community:

This message is to update you on the university's ongoing response to the recent hate incident on campus. First, please know that the University is very concerned with this particular incident, other incidents of bigotry, and any efforts at intimidation. In this case, we are honoring the wishes of the person at whom the specific attack was aimed, first by waiting to release information to the campus community until that person made a decision whether to return to the University, and second by not releasing specifics of the event. We, the Anti-Bias / Anti-Hate Subcommittee of the Diversity Plan Action Council (DPAC), encourage the University community to recognize this incident not only as a violation of an individual but also as a human and social group violation. It is at that level that we can and should respond collectively.

In that vein, students, staff and faculty held a "stand for human rights" vigil in front of Harry Griffith Hall on October 1 to affirm the importance of human rights and to support diversity on our campus.

To continue this work of creating a community where all feel welcome, safe, and respected, the Anti-Bias/Anti-Hate Subcommittee has scheduled a "Responding to Hate – Standing for Justice" forum for Wednesday October 7, 5:00-7:00 p.m., in Goodwin Forum (Nelson Hall East 102). This Subcommittee is also working to implement a university-wide Rapid Response Team to address hate incidents and to ensure continued dialogue and education in order to improve campus climate.

To continue these critical dialogues, we encourage your participation in the upcoming 12th Annual Campus Dialogue on Race, November 1-8. This year's schedule will be available at: http://www.humboldt.edu/~dialogue/

Sincerely,
Anti-Bias/Anti-Hate Subcommittee
Jennifer Eichstedt, Co-Chair





I chose to leave my internship early to be able to attend this forum. I was very concerned when I learned of the incident on campus that caused a person to resign and want to leave the community. I felt it was important to attend this forum.

I was surprised about the low number of students in attendance and the lack of very many students of color. I was appreciative of the diverse university employees in attendance: President Richmond, Provost Snyder, university police, and a range of women's studies, ethnic studies, sociology professors. However, I was very disheartened by extremely vocal, antisemitic, racist person in attendance. It was very bizarre. It's one thing to see hate speech on television or somewhere removed, but it is another to be sitting five feet away from such HATE.

The man interrupted the opening discussions by challenging the speaker about the number of crimes perpetrated upon white people. He claimed that gangs of black people were killing white people across America. He continued with a diatribe about professors on campus teaching to hate whiteness and directed this at one of my social work professors who was not in attendance. He also focused on the Jewish agenda for several minutes. He went on for a bit attacking the professor and then moved on to some of the usual propaganda against Obama, challenging whether or not he is a citizen and calling him a socialist king, etc., etc.. Finally he desisted in his hate speech.

Then the discussion actually continued to ways the campus could become a more inclusive safe space for all. We then broke into small groups to address Anti-Bias Response Team and how to create a create more dialogue around diversity and inclusiveness.

I was hoping to leave the forum feeling better about the campus coming together over this bias/hate incident. Yet, I left feeling more dejected and less safe on this campus.