Recent racially-charged incidents on campus led students at Saint Louis University to drive an email campaign to university administrators last week. Over 120 emails demanding responsive action were sent to five top administrators, including SLU's president, vice presidents and a dean. Violent racial slurs had become more commonplace on campus, and some minor vandalism is also assumed to be connected to the tense campus climate.

“It seems the administration is just kind of like they know what they are politically supposed to say, and I want them to feel uncomfortable," said senior Tianyi Li.  "I want them to feel embarrassed that they haven’t done their job.”
Earlier this semester, one black student reported hearing two male voices outside her door saying “F*** you, n*****,” while they ripped the name tag off her door. The students have since been identified and asked to leave campus, but the administration did not do anything to address racism on the campus at large following the incident.

The email campaign, organized by the unofficial student group Students for Social Justice, contained a list of eight demands including a new 24-hour hotline to assist students who feel threatened, immediate notification for students when discriminatory threats occur, and the establishment of a standard protocol for dealing with hate-related incidents.

“I really didn’t know what the motivation was to start the emails now in terms of timing, because we had not heard of any new incidents, so I didn’t quite know what their motivation was,” said Manoj Patankar, the Vice President of SLU's Frost Campus. “But as the number of emails built, clearly it is a serious issue from the perspective of students."

On March 24, Patankar responded to all the students who had emailed him, saying in the email that the administration “shares your concern about any incidents of hate or intolerance, and we are deeply committed to making sure that every SLU student feels safe and respected on our campus.”

Though the administration planned a town hall meeting for Thursday, there was no word of plans to implement or change university policy. Students for Social Justice planned to wear all black to the event.

“We are trying to build that community, and it is a very long and arduous process," said graduate student Sarah Holland, an organizer for the group. "And so that’s what we are trying to do, is build trust between allies and people who are suffering. We are trying to include as many voices as we can."
Racially motivated incidents have seemed to be on the rise on college campuses in recent months, and with them, student organizing. In California earlier this semester, a UC San Diego “Compton Cookout” party mocked stereotypes of poor black people and a noose and a KKK hood were found on campus; at UC Davis, swastikas were found on dorm room doors and the LGBT center was severely vandalized. At the University of Missouri, two students dumped boxes of cotton balls outside the black student center.

In all cases, victimized students and their allies have held meetings, teach-ins, or rallies, sometimes building occupations, and often made lists of demands of the administration to improve the campus climate.

In California, the UC Board of Regents recently announced measures to ramp up recruitment and retention of people of color and low-income students.

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