The past two weeks have been frightening and yet productive for students at Penn State University, located in the appropriately named Centre County in central Pennsylvania. Ordinarily, the Emerald editorial board focuses on issues directly concerning the University of Oregon. However, the events at Penn State are instructive for all of us, and they are scary enough to demand everyone’s attention.
On April 20, a black student reporter for Penn State’s student newspaper, The Collegian, received a typed death threat that also threatened the leader of Penn State’s Black Caucus. It wasn’t a simple “You’re going to die” message. It said, in part, that “this is a white academy in a white town — in a white country and by god it’s going to stay that way.” The letter said to look for the body of a young black man in the woods of Centre County. Handwritten on the letter were the words “Grad Day = bombs-PSU.”
The next day, the Black Caucus organized a protest. Twenty-six students were arrested after running onto the football field before the start of a game and refusing to leave. The protest was designed to make the community aware of the threatening atmosphere on campus, which the Black Caucus said the administration wasn’t doing.
But wait, there’s more. Three days later, on April 24, the body of a black man was found in Camptown, Pa., more than 100 miles from Penn State. Police said the killing wasn’t related, but the discovery upped the stakes for students. An administration-planned “unity march” that afternoon was overtaken by Black Caucus members, who used the rally to demand an active response from the administration.
That evening, students camped out in the student union. Then on April 27, the body of a black man was found in the woods in Centre County, some 20 miles from the campus. Student fears and demands escalated.
The sit-in lasted until Thursday when an agreement was reached between students and the administration on a proactive diversity plan, including expansion of the African and African American Studies department and a $900,000 commitment to create an Africana Studies Research Center.
Obviously we’re horrified by the hatred and violence of the threat. We’re dumbfounded that the administration barely responded. We’re also outraged that no national news covered this story in detail — our information is from The Collegian and the Penn State Web site. Students received death threats last October. The FBI has been investigating for months. Police even visited Black Caucus offices in early April to warn students about death threats. The administration simply dragged its feet until students reacted, and it should be ashamed.
However, we also have a message for students at this University: Be vigilant. Don’t assume our campus is clean of irrational, bigoted hatred. America is not a “white country,” and it never was. Whites immigrated to this land along with people of color. The 2000 Census shows the diversity in America. But that doesn’t stop some people from desperately wishing it were a “white country.”
In 2000, there were 22 hate-crime complaints filed with the Eugene Police Department. Those are just the officially reported incidents; the actual number may be higher. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Aryan Pride and Volksfront have a presence in Eugene, and organizations such as Communities Against Hate are working to stop them. Two years ago (almost to the day), a racist comment in a class right here at the University and further racist and sexist comments e-mailed to students in the class sparked a protest and sit-in at Johnson Hall.
While the University may not be a perfectly safe, racism-free and completely responsive environment, we would like to take a moment to thank all the people in the administration who have reacted immediately with concern for students this past school year. While we haven’t always agreed with them (nor they with us), people such as Erica Fuller, Carla Gary, Anne Leavitt, Chicora Martin and Mark Tracy have been alert and responsive to students’ concerns.
The University community should be proud of the strides it has made toward understanding and diversity, and it should feel relatively confident that, were an incident similar to the death threat at Penn State to happen here, our administration would handle the situation better. More importantly, though, we should all continue working together to build a community where those types of threats would never occur.