CSU: “We have failed you”

Joyce McConnell, the new president of Colorado State University, listened to students of color share their pain and frustrations about their treatment on campus during a Wednesday night student government meeting that stretched until 1:30 a.m.

Then she spent an additional two hours fine-tuning the speech she would give later Thursday morning, an address she used to apologize to students “who have been a victim of racism and bias.”

“There are people on this campus who demean and dehumanize and

threaten others because of the color of their skin, their religion, their country of origin or other aspects of their identity,” McConnell said in her first Fall Address on the Fort Collins campus. “We must do better. … To those of you who are here today who have been a victim of racism and bias … I am deeply sorry for all the ways we have failed you.”

McConnell’s speech, an ode to supporting underrepresented communities on campus, was met by a silent protest from CSU students. It followed a turbulent start to the fall semester, the opening of McConnell’s first academic year at the helm of CSU’s flagship campus.

The uproar on the Fort Collins campus began nearly two weeks ago after a photograph of four CSU students in blackface started making the rounds on social media. Some students were outraged that CSU administrators declined to punish the students, saying they were protected by the First Amendment.

Hours before Thursday’s fall address, McConnell said a swastika was found scrawled into campus housing. The blackface photo and the Nazi symbol are additional line items in a list of bias-related incidents at the northern Colorado university, from a student alleging racial discrimination in the school’s heralded “Ram Handler” program to two American Indian brothers who were pulled from a campus tour after a parent called to report them for being “quiet.”

Although the land-grant university is home to a diversity office and commission, as well as students, staffers and faculty members committed to inclusion, McConnell said that’s not enough. She announced during Thursday’s address the creation of a Race, Bias and Equity Initiative, modeled after an effort at the University of Washington.

“It will encompass both shortterm and long-term actions that will be implemented with urgency and courage,” McConnell said. “And our efforts will be at the individual, institutional and system levels. We start immediately.”

McConnell said the new initiative would be proactive in better educating all in the CSU community about the institution’s values around diversity and improve the university’s processes when responding to bias-related incidents.

The late-night student government meeting at which hundreds of students packed the room to hear emotional testimony from minorities on campus really drove home what needs to change at CSU, she said: “Clearly our students of color have not felt supported.”

“I’m not proud to be a CSU Ram”

Micaela Parker — a 21-year-old CSU student and vice president of the Tau Lambda chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, focused on supporting members of the black community — was among the hundreds who packed the student government meeting.

“It was so beautiful,” Parker said. “So many voices were heard. We talked for hours. It was one of the first things I’ve been a part of at CSU that people’s voices weren’t suppressed in any way, shape or form.”

Parker said being a black student on campus the past few weeks has taken an emotional, mental and physical toll on her — she has felt sick, missed class and become exhausted feeling like the job of educating her community about marginalized students has fallen to her.

“High school students stood up at that meeting last night and said they don’t want to come to CSU if this is what it’s like,” she said. “Students from other campuses — Denver, CSU Pueblo, UNC — showed up to support us. Parents — my parents — are alarmed about the culture here. I’m not proud to be a CSU Ram, and I won’t be proud until they make strides to educate themselves and hold themselves accountable.”

McConnell acknowledged that the burden of transformation must not be on students but on the administration.

“I know I did something stupid”

Leana Kaplan is one of the CSU freshmen in the picture wearing blackface and mimicking a pose from the Marvel movie “Black Panther.” (The photo’s caption said, “Wakanda forevaa.”) She said in an interview with CSU’s student-run Rocky Mountain Collegian and CTV 11 that she, too, felt burdened after receiving more than 60 death threats and being accosted on social media about the photo.

“There has been backlash,” Kaplan said, adding that the response she faced was punishment enough. “I’m a firm believer we learn from a mistake. I know I did something stupid.”

Kaplan described the social media reaction to her photograph as “World War III,” clarifying that she was just having fun with friends in the dorms — they were posing while wearing cosmetic face masks — and that the photo wasn’t meant to be racist. Kaplan said she has since researched blackface and understands how her actions could be perceived differently.

In a statement released to the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper, Kaplan said she has since been fired from her job over the photo.

“I am not looking for sympathy but making the point that the damage done to me is way out of proportion to an act of poor judgment during a moment of silliness,” Kaplan wrote. “Again, this is not to compare this damage to the life-long impact of racial prejudice. I’d like to say to those who have been offended, it is unfair to conclude that an awful photo is evidence of an awful person. If progress is to be made in the battle against racism, the full spectrum of sensitivity must include not creating any more victims.”

In an interview with The Denver Post, McConnell predicted the upcoming election year would be “a challenging time” for university campuses.

“There’s a lot of differences in opinion,” McConnell said. “Those opinions get heated. I think we need to have a dialogue on campus about speech and how we engage in free speech. We’re part of this world and part of this nation, and this is a very difficult moment in terms of public discourse. But we really believe that universities can be a place to show the way.”

“I am not looking for sympathy but making the point that the damage done to me is way out of proportion to an act of poor judgment during a moment of silliness.” Leana Kaplan, CSU freshman