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STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A group of students at Mississippi State University have issued a list of demands to President Mark Keenum and his administration as part of a protest sparked by the university's continued flying of the state flag.
About 100 students held a sit-in Wednesday at Lee Hall, which houses Keenum's office. Organizers told The Commercial Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1p4Po33 ) they wanted to show support for lowering and changing the state flag, which now bears a Confederate symbol. They also issued a list of demands related to minority issues they say administrators are ignoring.
In addition to the flag issue, the group wants the administration to: equalize funding and support for black student organizations; increase minority faculty hires; address retention and graduation rates for African-American students and facilitate more diversity and sensitivity training; create on-campus safe spaces for black students; promote inclusive environments for all minority groups; have equal and fair treatment for African-American events, concerts and programs; end discrimination in the university's housing program; and deliver more physical and mental health programs for black students.
Some of the demands, including a call for transgender bathrooms, went beyond the scope of African-American-specific issues. The group made the flag's removal the crux of the protest after Keenum, who said he supports changing the divisive symbol to one that unifies all Mississippians, failed to lower the flag as many other universities did, instead asking constituents to respect the state-level process needed for a permanent fix.
"Taking the state flag down arbitrarily is a symbolic gesture that accomplishes nothing toward actually changing the state flag to something that everyone can support and feel good about," Keenum said in a statement. "I support real flag change and I think I can best help accomplish that by working within the system to bring about that change. That I have done. That I will continue to do."
Protest organizers Queen Brown and Darius Johnson said they appreciate the dialogue with university officials about the flag status, but it's time for university leadership to stop talking and take action.
"At some point, you have to have action, and our actions are pressuring them," Brown said. "The biggest thing the administration has been saying is (the flag) is not on the drill field, that it's not easily seen. If it's hidden, does that really make things better?"
Johnson, who is a senior like Brown, said the university's failure to fully address the flag issue suggests it supports the divisive history behind the emblem.
"For our university to wave that flag is like saying we do support slavery," Johnson added.
As protesters' chants echoed inside Lee Hall, Keenum said the university is studying each of the issues raised by the group, dubbed the Lucky 7. Many of them, he said, are also strategic focal points for the university and his own personal goals.
"I want any student, any employee and any visitor who comes to this campus to feel safe, feel valued and to feel respected," Keenum said. "That's what I work to achieve."
Keenum said the university's position of "respecting the process" will grant it a role with lawmakers when they move forward on the issue. The MSU Student Association and Faculty Senate both have issued resolutions asking the state to change the emblem to one that unites Mississippians, and Keenum himself has called upon state lawmakers to make the change.
Wednesday's protest, he said, gives credence to the issues MSU has raised and should give lawmakers more reason to look into a solution.
"I applaud the students for taking a stand," Keenum said. "We need a symbol ... that we can all, as Mississippians, be proud of."
A timetable for addressing the flag issues and other demands was not announced, but Keenum said he hoped it could be soon.
MSU had a total of 20,873 students during the fall of 2015. Of those, 4,022 were black, according to the most recent numbers from the state Institutions of Higher Learning. That marks the highest African-American enrollment in the Southeastern Conference.
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Information from: The Commercial Dispatch, http://www.cdispatch.com
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