OU’s Black Emergency Response Team began a sit-in at Evans Hall early Wednesday morning, declaring a silent hunger strike after two professors used a racial slur in class in the past two weeks.
The protest is one of several sit-ins held at OU in the past four years — all of which have drawn varied responses from OU’s administration — and reflects movements like the current sit-in at the University of Syracuse, which is now in its 10th day.
Sit-ins at OU
OU administrators have responded to recent student protests with methods ranging from participation/support of the demonstration to allowing university spokespeople to address the crowd directly.
Jabar Shumate, former OU vice president for university community (which has since been renamed to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion), actively participated in the 2016 Black Lives Matter “Die-in,” chanting and lying on the floor of the Oklahoma Memorial Union with protesters in the wake of a Tulsa police officer shooting and killing an unarmed black man. After some student protesters asked why former OU President David Boren was absent at the event, Boren released a statement on Twitter sharing his support.
During the August 2019 “Save the American Organ Institute” rally, which saw protesters walk out of the OU School of Music convocation ceremony and sit on the steps of Evans Hall for three hours, the protesters also provided a short list of demands.
Mary Margaret Holt, dean of the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts, and several OU spokespeople addressed the crowd during the sit-in, and the encounter quickly turned to shouts of displeasure and criticism of the university representatives’ responses to protester questions. The university ultimately met none of the protester’s demands, with the program still scheduled to close this May.
Recently, OU administration has relied on arranging private meetings with student leaders of the protests.
At a November 2019 sit-in advocating for improved climate change policies at OU, administrators did not address the group of protesters, but did schedule private meetings with key student leaders of the group to address the students’ demands in the following weeks.
According to Norman Transcript reporter Emma Keith, administrators have confirmed that they are reviewing BERT’s demands — which include the implementation of a campus multicultural center and the resignation of Provost Kyle Harper — and are comparing them to the current university diversity plan, which was unveiled in March 2019 after the string of racist incidents that began in January 2019.
At 11 a.m. students at the BERT sit-in met privately for about 40 minutes with Belinda Higgs Hyppolite, vice president of diversity and inclusion, and David Surratt, vice president of student affairs and dean of students.
None of the OU sit-ins since the 2015 SAE incident has lasted more than a day. It is unclear how long the BERT sit-in is planned to last.
Syracuse University sit-in
The OU protest is similar to a current sit-in at Syracuse University, where the black-student-led #NotAgainSU sit-in entered its 10th day Wednesday, triggered by “at least 30 racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic incidents” in and around the Syracuse campus since early November 2019, according to an article from the Daily Orange.
The Syracuse sit-in has evolved extensively since it began — the students have consulted legal counsel regarding their continued occupation of the Crouse-Hinds building, and Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud has signed a list of 19 demands provided by students, according to the Daily Orange.
The demands included are similar to those posed by BERT, including a reformed curriculum to more effectively include diversity, mandatory training for university faculty and different punishments for “different levels of involvement” in hate speech on campus.
The protesters and public safety officers have also come into conflict throughout the Syracuse sit-in. According to an article from The Daily Orange, Department of Public Safety officers restricted food access to Crouse-Hinds, with the university providing meals that day and night. A video posted to social media also showed the DPS assistant chief “physically struggling” with protesters who were trying to keep the building entrance open, and at one point “is seen reaching for his gun holster.”
Other altercations have included officers mocking protesters standing outside the building, saying that “It’s a little cold out here” as they entered the building, according to the Daily Orange article, and officers were seen stepping on food, which outside protesters were throwing to protesters inside the building.
None of the recent sit-ins at OU have involved OU Police Department altercations with protesters. OUPD Major Bruce Chan told The Daily on Wednesday that OUPD does not decide how long a protest will be allowed to continue.
