Students: Chancellor failed minorities on pro-white agitator
The University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor's response to a
student trying to set up a pro-white group on campus further alienates
minorities as they struggle for a better campus experience, student
leaders said Friday.
The student's effort to set up a campus chapter of the American
Freedom Party — whose platform includes "prioritizing white supremacy
values," according to its Facebook page — has raised questions about how
the university should respond and comes as the white nationalist
movement as a whole has been emboldened by Donald Trump's presidency.
Student government representatives urged Chancellor Rebecca
Blank in a letter to denounce the AFP as racist. They said her statement
Thursday saying that expressing objectionable viewpoints isn't illegal
was weak.
"Chancellor Blank's statement is a testament to how
administrators outwardly show a lack of verbal and systemic support for
students of color or minority identities," the letter from Associated
Students of Madison Chair Carmen Goséy, ASM Representative Brooke Evans
and Student Activity Center Governing Board Chair Katrina Morrison said.
Blank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Adding to the students' concerns is that the man who's
recruiting for the AFP chapter, Daniel Dropik, served almost five years
in federal prison for racially charged arsons against churches in
Milwaukee and Michigan. Dropik, 33, says frustration over the
university's efforts to improve the experiences of minority students led
him to start a local AFP chapter.
Blank said in her statement that the university is monitoring
the group for threats but that expressing hateful viewpoints is legal
and within campus policies. She added that she would ask regents to
revisit the University of Wisconsin System's policy of not considering
criminal records in the admission process.
Goséy, Evans and Morrison wrote that Blank is focusing on admissions policy rather than acknowledging the threat Dropik poses.
Doctoral student Walter Parrish III, who's studying higher
education leadership and policy, said Blank's response failed to address
minorities' discomfort given Dropik's criminal history. Parrish said
Blank's response suggests the university doesn't have a plan in place to
protect minority students.
"As a black student on campus, I'm wondering what does this mean? Who is to say something extreme won't happen?" Parrish said.
AFP national chair William Johnson said in a phone interview
that Dropik told him Friday morning that the backlash against his
recruiting efforts has been overwhelming and that he fears for his
safety.
"On college campuses, there is a great deal of pushback whenever someone wants to a start a pro-white group," Johnson said.
Johnson said he knows of at least one college AFP chapter that
operates "under the radar," but he wouldn't say where and wouldn't say
whether there were more colleges with chapters. He said Trump's
presidency makes recruiting efforts easier.
"When people hear you're a nationalist, they used to say, 'Oh,
you're like Mussolini?' Now they say, 'Oh, you're like Donald Trump,'"
he said.
Trump's disavowal in late November of white supremacists who
have cheered his election hasn't quieted concerns about the movement's
impact on the White House. His strongest denunciation has not come
voluntarily, only when asked, and he occasionally trafficked in retweets
of racist social media posts during his campaign.
In their letter, the student government leaders also took Blank
to task for not strongly denouncing a man who wore a costume of former
President Barack Obama with a noose around his neck to a football game
in November. University officials made the man remove the noose but
allowed him to stay at the game.
Blank said the noose was unacceptable but that the university must resist the urge to censor political dissent.
The students want Blank to participate in a cultural competency
program so she can create policies that directly address racism on
campus. A group of students are planning a march to protest Dropik's
group Tuesday.
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