After the president of the College of William and Mary took issue with student Black Lives Matter activists issuing demands instead of requests, the latter went off on a rant about his “white supremacy” and “patriarchy.”
They added that the president “should not have his job.”
According to The Libertarian Republic, William & Mary President W. Taylor Reveley III was none too happy that the BLMers — dubbed “Built on Our Backs” at the school — had demanded
–a tenured diversity position
–a required social justice course
–an Africana Studies department
–a zero-tolerance policy for racism
–more staff for W&M’s Center for Student Diversity
–emphasis on recruiting black students
–more employment and retention of black faculty.
“I don’t deal in demands,” Reveley said. “I don’t make demands of other people. I don’t expect to receive demands from people. I love to get suggestions, recommendations, strong arguments.”
In response, the Center for Student Diversity’s Erica West complained “This is what being censored looks like. This is what white supremacy looks like. This is what patriarchy looks like. This is what condescension looks like. This is what being told ‘you, your issues and your life don’t matter’ looks like. THIS is why we say #BlackLivesMatter.”
“Isn’t it sad that the basis of our platform for BLM’s 10 demands is better education, namely required education in Black history?” Damiana Dendy, a W&M student and former intern at the US Department of Education, wrote on Facebook. “It’s sad that we still have to justify ourselves and our collective history, that this College was #BuiltOnOurBacks and we still have to fight for our stories to be heard.”
“He [Reveley] felt the need to validate the humanity of a former African American male colleague of his by prefacing his story with ‘he was handsome, great work, good guy’ and the like, and did not see this as a microaggression,” she continued. Dendy also detailed a long list of complaints about the president on Facebook, saying: “This man should not be President of our College.”
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“You can effectively go to William and Mary for 4 years, even 5 years, never take a course in Africana for example, never take a course that is non-western thought and I feel that [is] very important that that is required,” Dendy said in the meeting.
In response, President Reveley noted that W&M has a Chief Diversity Officer.
But the BLM group demanded a tenured faculty member, detailing that they would like a Vice Provost of Diversity and Inclusion, and citing that other Virginia schools, such as the University of Virginia have such an officer. Marcus L. Martin, UVA’s Vice President and Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity, earned $338,800 in the 2015-2016 academic year.
In an official response posted on their Facebook page, Built on Our Backs said it was “deeply troubled” by how the meeting went and whined that President Reveley “failed to recognize the urgency of [its] demands.”
“Through his actions and evasive rhetoric, he has shown that he does not respect the experiences and concerns of people of color on our campus,” the group added.
Video of the meeting and meeting transcript.
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