On Monday, December 3rd, around 2:00 p.m., approximately 200 Western Washington University students marched from Red Square up to the President's office, in response to the administration's lackluster response to the recent hate speech that vandalized our campus in recent weeks.
The administration's response was less than satisfying as well. When the group arrived, they were greeted by the Vice President of Enrollment, and no one else. Conveniently, the rest of the administration who is in charge of choices when it comes to student conduct, was either sick or out of town, leaving a woman who had only worked at the school for sixteen months to field the angry questions of approximately 200 students. They were tired of campus sending out one email, as if it were a one and done issue, and then moving on.
I couldn't help but feel it was an example of the glass cliff, where a woman is put into a leadership role so that when things fall apart, she could be blamed. Her answers were evasive, and the more she tried to dig Western administration out of the hole they had dug for themselves, the worse it grew.
When the subject of the email came up, the administration admitted that Sabah Randhawa did not write the email himself, but with the other members of the faculty, and students grew even more restless.
Students desire to feel safe on their campus, and with the growing sweeps of hate speech left on sculptures and on people's doorsteps over the past four years, its no wonder the masses grew tired of it and marched their way to the President's office.
When asked what they were going to do about the situation, the administration said that he had been arrested and was following due process, despite the fact that the student in question is still allowed on campus. Students asked what they were going to do in the meantime to keep people safe, considering the violent threats against people of color. The question was asked three times, and each time it was dodged with an evasive answer regarding the location of the conversation. Eventually, the Chief of University Police showed up to physically block the door to the office and while I understand the fear of a riot, did it really seem logical to bring police into a location where people of color were protesting and already felt unsafe? Their responses continue to be short-sighted and lackluster.
That is exactly what we are tired of. While the newest email from "Sabah Randhawa" included a list of demands made by students and specified that he had spoken with them for three hours, (only after he had returned from Seattle) the question remains if campus executives will actually respond to the demands of students or if they will continue to dig themselves deeper into the hole.
