From left, Allen Coon, Makala McNeil and Gregory Wilson, members of the University of Mississippi’s NAACP chapter, draft a list of demands for the chancellor to act on during a peaceful sit-in at the campus administration building.
More than 100 protesters waited on the crowded Lyceum carpet Friday as student leaders and university administration spoke behind closed doors just one floor above them.
Hours before, those same students were wandering around campus doing homework or talking to friends, planning for gameday or attending class, but common cause had drawn them all to a protest at the heart of the university.
On Thursday night, Jordan Samson, an Ole Miss business major, commented on a Facebook post about the riots in Charlotte, where protesters have rallied around the death of Keith Lamont Scott, who was shot by policemen.
“I have a tree with room for all of them if you want to settle this Wild West style,” the comment said.
After NY Daily News reporter Shaun King pointed out the comment and several hundred people retweeted it or posted it to Facebook, many looked to university administration to respond.
UM NAACP President Tysianna Marino told The Daily Mississippian in a telephone interview that she wanted to give the administration the opportunity to respond appropriately before organizing a response from the association.
Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter’s initial response was issued around noon Friday.
“The university leadership and I are aware of recent comments made on social media that have generated concern by members of the Ole Miss community,” the statement said. “The University of Mississippi condemns the use of language that might encourage or condone violence. Instead, let’s be respectful and civil in our discourse, as called for in the Creed.”
The statement did not mention Samson’s comment.
After reading it, the UM NAACP decided to rally students to occupy the Lyceum.
The protesters followed a model other student protests across the nation have in recent years, in which protesters sit or stand in an area to gain attention from administrators to demonstrate the number of people who care about a certain issue. UM NAACP leaders only had an hour to promote the event, which began at 2 p.m. They tweeted and made Facebook posts, reaching out to the student body through social media.
Even with such a short time to prepare, students filled the hallways on two floors of the Lyceum.
“Right now, we are occupying the Lyceum in response to racist terroristic threats and Chancellor Vitter’s lackluster response to these threats,” Jaylon Martin, UM NAACP vice president, said. “We believe that these threats cannot stand and that the chancellor should respond strictly and swiftly to these threats. We, as the NAACP, also feel that these threats are not acceptable and cannot go unpunished.”
Dominique Scott, UM NAACP treasurer and president of Students Against Social Injustice, said Samson’s comment must be viewed in relation to Ole Miss’ history.
“These comments are happening within the context of a long, long history of the University of Mississippi allowing its students to terrorize other students,” Scott said. “Instead of having a swift response to it, Chancellor Vitter instead chose to sort of dance around the language and not call it exactly what it was.”
Scott said the comment and the university’s response to it must also be understood in relation to the nation’s current, racially-tense climate.
“These sort of comments in concert with this larger narrative with black people going on in the country is especially frightening, and I hope that Chancellor Vitter had some sort of an inkling of understanding of context before he would make such a lackluster response,” Scott said.
Among the crowd were campus leaders Austin Powell, the president of the Associated Student Body; Cole Putman, Mr. Ole Miss; Acacia Santos, Miss Ole Miss; Terrius Harris, president of the Black Student Union; as well as members of the UM Pride Network, UM NAACP and Students Against Social Injustice.
Powell said he had only heard about the occupation 10 minutes before it began, but he knew he wanted to go immediately.
“It’s important to be here for the students. When you’re representing 20,000 students, it’s a lot of voices and varying opinions,” Powell said. “When the Creed is violated, we have to stand in solidarity.”
Mr. And Miss Ole Miss attended the Lyceum occupation: pic.twitter.com/disjZQ2ctS
— Daily Mississippian (@thedm_news) September 23, 2016
Students took to social media to publicize the occupation. Different groups – like student government and the Black Student Union – Several Facebook Live streams, Periscopes and tweeted videos received hundreds of views and national attention, but that’s not why the protesters were there.
“People should know we’re not doing this just to make a scene, but we’re doing it because we want to be heard,” Lawndarius Fondren said. “Until we get what we want, until the university decides to listen to what we have going on, we’re going to be here.”
Fondren, a psychology major, said this is not the first time he has seen violent, racist comments in light of recent events, but this is the first time he has seen the comments from another Ole Miss student.
As the occupation gained attention, Ole Miss alumni posted messages of support to the students. Alumnae Courtney Pearson, the first black Homecoming Queen in 2012 and Kim Dandridge, the first black female ASB president in 2012, ordered pizza and sandwiches for the protesters. Dandridge was on a plane when she did so, but used onboard wifi to order the delivery.
Half an hour into the occupation, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Brandi Hephner LaBanc asked the leaders of the NAACP to form a list of demands explaining why they were protesting and what they wanted from the university.
Several of the student leaders went into one of the front rooms of the Lyceum and drafted the email they would send to LaBanc.
They had four requests: that the university recognize Samson’s comments as a racist threat and take disciplinary action, that the administration apologize for its previous statement because it did not recognize this racism, that Vitter reassure the community that neither he nor the university will tolerate this type of behavior on the Ole Miss campus and that Vitter would work directly with students to confront the culture of white supremacy on campus.
Dominique Scott, treasurer of NAACP and president of SASI, and Jaylon Martin, vice-president of NAACP, state their list of demands for university administrators. (Photos by Ariel Cobbert)
Dominique Scott, treasurer of NAACP and president of SASI, states a list of demands for university administrators.
After these requests were announced, Dominique Scott, Allen Coon, Terrius Harris, Makala McNeil and university administrators went to an upstairs room to talk about their terms. Among the university administrators who were in and out of the meeting were Vitter, Provost Morris Stocks, Hephner LaBanc, Assistant Dean of Students Val Ross and Assistant to the Chancellor Concerning Minority Affairs Don Cole. They remained in the closed room for more than two more hours.
Some students remained inside while others moved outside or left. While they filed out of the Lyceum, they met Andrew Soper.
Soper’s role in the occupation was minimal until this point. It was Soper’s Facebook post that Samson had commented on the night before. Soper said he came to the protest to “stand in solidarity with the students who are upset about what happened.”
“Hate speech and racism and things like that are not going to be tolerated whatsoever,” Soper said. “I came here to sit with them because I don’t believe in what was said.”
Soper is very active on Facebook and a strong supporter of the state flag. He plays a role in the Our State Flag Foundation and, knowing this, students asked Soper why he came to the protest.
What started out as a simple conversation grew as a diverse crowd of about 30 surrounded him, asking questions and listening.
They sat beneath the bullet holes still visible from the integration of James Meredith, the university’s first black student. They sat together on the 61st anniversary of the acquittal of Emmett Till’s murderers by an all-white jury. They sat a dozen yards from where the Ku Klux Klan protested just last year, and they talked about understanding one another.
Students have civil dialogue with Andrew Soper, ASB senator and sponsor of Our State Flag Foundation, on the steps of the Lyceum after several students voice their concern about him being in the Lyceum during the sit-in.
Around 6 p.m., the student leaders emerged from the closed room to tell the protesters what they had discussed.
“They will revise their statement regarding the entire situation,” Martin said. “We will hear more about (Samson’s) punishment in the next few days … Lastly, we will be meeting with them again in the next two weeks or so to continue this dialogue.”
Vitter released a second statement later Friday night.
“Because I have an open door policy, I invited some of the student leaders to meet with me and other university leaders,” the statement said. “The students helped me more fully understand the impact on them of national events and this particular social media post.”
Vitter said he condemned Samson’s post.
“In light of our country’s history, that comment can only be seen as racist, offensive and hurtful, especially to members of our African-American community,” the statement said. “There is no place in our community for racist or violent acts.”
Makala McNeil, communications director for the UM NAACP, said she felt much had been accomplished Friday but there was still much left to do.
“There was a lot of open dialogue, a lot of listening. I think it went well,” McNeil said.
Mikala McNeil speaks on the NAACP occupation of the Lyceum pic.twitter.com/nTfeKpnqeK
— Daily Mississippian (@thedm_news) September 23, 2016
McNeil said she felt the administration learned that whatever happens in the world directly affects what happens on campus. McNeil said the university could tell how passionate students are about this issue by how willing they were to gather on a Friday evening.
“Gathering here was so sporadic because it was an emotional response to what’s happening. This is nothing that was scheduled,” McNeil said. “We are collectively coming together as students and saying, ‘This is not OK. We don’t want to be a part of it.’”
But McNeil said the work isn’t finished yet.
“Obviously, there is always more work to be done. I didn’t leave there feeling like everything at the University of Mississippi is accomplished now and we have nothing else to fight for. We’re still out here. The fight will always continue.”
