Students Show Solidarity with University of Missouri Students

This week, student groups at Rockhurst University came together to support their peers at the University of Missouri and across the nation in the wake of recent events on the Columbia campus.

This week, the president of the University of Missouri system and the chancellor of the University of Missouri-Columbia stepped down under pressure from students who claimed administrators had not taken action following reported acts of racial discrimination. The days following those resignations have seen students face continued threats from some on social media and from some on their own campus.

Seeing this unfold in the media and on social networks, junior and Rockhurst Black Student Union member Kiarra Jones said BSU members knew they wanted to show solidarity with MU students.

“As we’ve seen organizations across the nation come together to support them, we felt the need to give them our support as well,” she said. “We wanted to show them that we are here for them.”

They weren’t alone. Kelsey Burrus, president of BSU, said the organization talked with counterparts at other area universities, such as William Jewell College and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who planned to host similar events. And at Rockhurst, BSU reached out to members of the Rockhurst Student Senate and Voices for Justice, who together with the group invited students across the Rockhurst campus to sign a banner reading “Standing with Mizzou” and to join them in a group photo with the banner to show solidarity with students across the nation. Jones said the idea was to make clear that despite differences, all students deserve a space where they feel safe.

“A lot of the people who have come to sign the banner have been open and they’ve been very willing to show that we are all students and that we are here for those who have faced hate and discrimination,” she said.

In the last two weeks, groups across the University campus have planned events to further the conversation on the effects of hate and discrimination. In the first week of November, a number of student and University offices sponsored Erase Hate Week, capped off by a presentation from Holocaust survivor Esther Bauer. On Friday, Nov. 13, the University’s residence life office sponsors “Beyond Words,” an interactive experience designed to teach students about various forms of oppression and how to best respond to it as a University.