Many former and current Central Michigan University students took to social media in the last few weeks to share their encounters with racism, microagressions and discrimination at the university.
The stories garnered the attention of university president Bob Davies.
“I cannot change the past, but I will work with our students, faculty, staff and alumni to ensure a better future for others,” Davies said in a statement.
CMU graduate Adaeza Ekowa was one of the students that took to Twitter to share her personal stories.
Ekowa came to CMU in 2015. During the summer leading up to her freshman year, she was in a group chat with other future CMU students. She said the students removed her from the group chat, only to add her back later on.
“When they added me back I saw that they had been using racial slurs,” Ekowa said.
Ekowa gave the students the opportunity to apologize. She said some did, but the apologies didn’t seem sincere to her.
“They only apologized when I threatened to expose them, so to me, they really didn’t care,” Ekowa said.
She brought the incident to her Residence Hall Director.
“He told me ‘what do you want me to do because there really is nothing we can do.’ So when my roommate called me (a racial slur), I don't even know whi to go to the RhD or whoever, because I felt like nothing was going to be done at all.”
Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at Central Michigan University A.T. Miller said the Office for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a policy office, meaning they can introduce initiatives to create change.
“We’re hearing from students who said that somebody would say to them that ‘there is nothing that we can do or that is just a bad person that did something bad,’” Miller said. “But now we have a way to change policy and to work on better training across campus.”
“It's a pattern, you know, it's happening over and over.”
Ekowa said she and other black students felt like they were ostracized to The Towers residence halls because it had a high percentage of the black population.
Data shows that 51 percent of black students living in on-campus housing lived in the Towers during the 2019 academic year. By comparison, 19.5 percent of white students live in the Towers.
CMU Director of Residence Life Kathleen Gardner said she understands why students get the perception of the Towers being highly populated by black students.
“I think part of that could be that the MAC scholars are in Troutman Hall, a lot of those students are black or African American so you have an entire learning community placed in that building,” Gardner said.
The MAC scholar stands for Multicultural and Advancement Cofer scholars. These students have pledged to enhance diversity, multiculturalism and inclusion at CMU.
CMU Junior Nia Boone shared her experiences on Twitter too. She said felt singled out at social events and in the classroom. She said the Towers was a safe place for her.
“When it comes to discussing maybe north campus, south campus or east campus, we don't wanna go over there,” Boone said. “It don’t feel right, yeah I got friends but it don’t feel right. It's nothing like Towers.”
This week, CMU suspended the Chairperson of the journalism department, Tim Boudreau, due to reports of the use of racial slurs.
The university is investigating the reports to determine action.
According to CMU’s 2019 fall enrollment report, 9.7 percent of CMU’s student body identified as black or African American. That compares with around eight-percent of students at Ferris State University and Saginaw Valley State University. While only one and a half percent of students at Lake Superior State University identify as black.
Gardner said Residence Life has made efforts to better include people of color.
“I would say it is a priority for us in terms of our values as an institution and housing program. I think it goes back to our staffing patterns, making sure that our staff represents the diversity of the student population.”
Ekowa said issues with racism extended off-campus. She said people of color were mistreated by Mount Pleasant Police.
She said during Welcome Weekend of her senior year, a fight of “35 white kids” broke out in Bluegrass Apartments, but police were not called.
“They were brawling in the parking lot.”
She said officers werecalled on a party that was being held by African-American students the same night, but no fighting occurred at this party.
“No one called the police on these white kids. Black people that were having a party and they saw because they saw the black people driving in. They called the police and 20, 15 cop cars showed up outside that apartment to shut down that party of a whole bunch of black kids.”
Miller with the Inclusion office said a group of students came to him about mistreatment of students of color by local police back in 2018. He said he saw an opportunity to create change.
“I went to the Mount Pleasant Police Chief and talked with him about it and he said, ‘actually that is true.’ And they then did a whole training with their police officers and he has been meeting monthly with the Mount Pleasant chapter of Black Lives Matter chapter.”
The current culture in the United States has sparked many people to share their stories, stories they didn’t know how to share until now.
Boone said she finally feels comfortable talking about it.
“I know people will listen, I know people will hear me,” she said. “But, for them to be able to say, ‘I feel comfortable coming out about what happened’ is a game changer.”
Ekowa said sharing stories is important to finding a solution to the problem at hand.
“You can’t forget about the past because then you’re going to be blind to what’s going to happen in the future,” she said. “So, what I feel like CMU needs to, is when it comes to racism and students are telling you these things… listen.”
Both Boone and Ekowa said they were happy to see Davies issue a statement on the issue of racist behavior. Miller said CMU leaders are open to change, which is a good start.