Hundreds of students, staff and faculty members from dozens of student organizations and University affiliations overflowed the Rouss Hall lecture hall last night at a town meeting sponsored by the Black Student Alliance.
The meeting was organized to address the University community's response to fourth-year College student Amey Adkins' report that a racial slur was written across a window of her car Sept. 8.
"We want to communicate to the people that care," BSA President Myra Franklin said. "We also want to propose some solutions."
The meeting began when third-year Engineering student Isaac Agbeshie, BSA vice president of networking, introduced the "Zero Tolerance for Ignorance" campaign that the BSA used to inform the community of the meeting and featured a flier with the statement "Alert! Serial Racist."
"This is a discussion slash forum slash information session," Agbeshie said.
The first issue addressed at the meeting was the administration's response to the reported crime.
Angela Davis, associate dean of students for Residence Life and co-chair of the President's Commission on Diversity and Equity, read the University protocol for dealing with crime victims, which involves notification and medical, academic and psychological attention for the victim.
"This was a crime, this was our protocol and I stand before you and I apologize because all of these things were not done," Davis said.
Several students expressed concern about the administration's failure to send out a mass e-mail to the student body about the incident.
Franklin read a letter from Patricia Lampkin, University vice president for student affairs, who apologized for not providing enough support for Adkins.
According to Agbeshie, Lampkin informed the BSA that she was unable to attend the town meeting because of a prior engagement she could not break.
African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner said students also have a responsibility to react to racially motivated incidents.
"We are trying to get it right," he said. "This is your University and you've got to stand up for all these things."
An issue addressed later at the meeting was The Cavalier Daily's coverage of the incident. Several people in attendance voiced concerns about the newspaper's decision not to run a news article on the incident. Editor-in-Chief Chris Wilson answered questions at the meeting.
According to an article that ran in yesterday's Cavalier Daily, Wilson said the paper decided to hold off on covering the incident until more information surfaced or there was a widespread student reaction.
Franklin later expressed her disappointment with The Cavalier Daily's decision.
"The newsworthiness of Amey's story was not debatable," she said.
Politics Prof. Michael Smith, co-chair of the President's Commission on Diversity and Equity, said the community should have an active role in deciding how University news should be reported.
"Every one of these instances is one too many -- this is a nationwide problem," Smith said. "We need to decide how we want the news reported, so it's not on one student editor."
Other concerns brought up at the meeting involved issues of safety at the University and concerns about what progress police have made in the investigation of racially motivated crimes at the University.
Participants said they want to promote publicity of the Adkins incident to facilitate communication between all student organizations and the University administration.
Smith and Davis encouraged attendees to read the President's Commission on Diversity and Equity report, slated to be released and available online Oct. 3.
Franklin said the BSA plans to utilize a list that was circulated at the meeting with attendees' names, e-mail addresses and the organization they came to represent. Deans from various schools and employees from Student Health attended the meeting, in addition to representatives from student groups ranging from Greek organizations to religious groups to Student Council committees.
According to Agbeshie, the BSA held the event to publicize the Adkins incident. The BSA originally postponed the meeting to evaluate the administration's response to the incident.
"We waited to see what the response would be," Agbeshie said.
One of the next steps toward progress is to create a penalty for acts of racial hatred with the aid of the University Judiciary Committee and the Honor Committee, according to Agbeshie.
"We want a strict penalty enforcing zero tolerance," he added.
Franklin said she thought the meeting was productive but that it is important that the University community follows through with the suggestions expressed at the meeting.
"The proof lies in the pudding," Franklin said. "If there is no follow through on the ideas that were suggested then the meeting was in vain and we've done nothing -- our real aim is change."
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