The front lines of student protests
By Darby VanHoutan | @darbyvanhoutan
On any given day, the main areas of KU’s campus are filled with more than students and staff walking to and from classes. The lawn outside of Stauffer Flint Hall, the beach of concrete outside of Wescoe and even the hallways leading to the offices of University administrators can be crowded with student protestors. Sometimes the very buildings student activists are demonstrating within are themselves a product protests led by students.
One key witness to some of the most recent protests at the University is Curtis Marsh, director of both the DeBruce Center and KU Info. Marsh has been director of KU Info for 13 years and seen some of the most divisive protests. One in particular was Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk, a student group founded at KU in 2015 that demanded changes for marginalized students at the University. Marsh was also present to see students demanding changes in sexual assault reporting in 2014 after a Huffington Post article surfaced criticizing KU for they way it handled complaints of sexual misconduct.
“These issues aren’t just being tackled at universities because college students need to decide for themselves where they stand,” Marsh said. “They’re also being tackled on university grounds because this is supposed to be a place where messages can be safely sent.”
The center Marsh runs, in fact, was started out of student activism. KU Info — originally a rumor control center — began as a result of student initiatives. In the 1970’s, amid civil rights protests and anti-war demonstrations, a group of students started up a hotline that had the sole purpose of answering questions and fact-checking rumors. This has grown into KU Info, an organization still run by students who answer questions via phone calls, texts, emails and in-person drop ins at places like the Memorial Union, Burge Union and their Jayhawk Boulevard booth.
“It doesn’t matter your question and it doesn’t matter who you are,” Marsh said. “And a lot of that is because when we started, we were just helping with information on what was going on on campus.”
One of the KU Info booths is housed in a WWI memorial, another project of student activism. The KU Memorial Union began as a fundraiser in the 1920’s led by students who were dead set on a memorial dedicated to the 129 KU students and alumni who died during the first world war. After the completion of the “Million Dollar Drive” they had more than just a union; they had a football field, statues and a completed project all as a result of student activism. Those pictures of those 129 still hang on the sixth floor of the KU Memorial Union.
That union has also become the scene of protests unrelated to the first world war but still led by students. One of the most infamous instances of protests at the Union was when it was burnt on April 20, 1970. This arson, which caused an estimated $1,029,099.19 in damage to the Union, is still unsolved but happened amidst civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protests around the country.
Alderson Auditorium, located on the fourth floor of the Union, is where Student Senate meets weekly throughout the school year. One individual has become synonymous with activism within the Student Senate chambers. Trinity Carpenter, a current graduate student at KU has spent a majority of her undergraduate years at the front of Alderson Auditorium — a place where she started the first Multicultural Student Government in the nation.
Trinity Carpenter
One of the first protests Carpenter said she remembers being involved in at the University was a sit in at the School of Social Welfare in 2016. It was at that sit in that students were demanding the Dean of the School of Social Welfare’s resignation. The students felt that the dean, Paul Smokowski, was acting racistly.
More than this, students felt they weren’t being allowed to protest as they felt fit — they proposed changes to the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities in order to allow more leniency with student protests. And despite Dean Smokowski resigning a few months later, Carpenter doesn’t always feel confident in the impact students have on Universities via activism.
“I have seen changes in leadership and power but nothing tangible for students,” Carpenter said. “I have yet to see direct benefit to students.”
Carpenter was the poster child for the beginning of KU’s Multicultural Student Government. This government, which recently came under fire when President Chiquita Jackson was removed and funding was later taken away by Student Senate, began as a product of student activism in 2016.
Carpenter was at the forefront of the first discussions, asking Student Senate for funding at a sit in at the beginning of 2016 during Senate’s annual fee review where the body decides what student and University groups will receive student fees in the upcoming year. That year, then-Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little vetoed the $2 per student/ per semester fee Senate had approved for the body.
However, the next year, when Carpenter came back to the body, she shut down all discussion of student fees until funding for MSG was included, a small fee was passed by Student Senate, Chancellor Gray-Little and the Kansas Board of Regents.
“The Multicultural Student Government felt like a win…twice,” Carpenter said. “However, I now know those in power never had intentions of changing the racist structure of student government or the university. We were pacified and taken advantage of at every opportunity.”
The driving force behind Carpenter getting involved as an activist on campus, she said, was “Justice. And knowing that so many behind me would never survive the environment on our campus.”
Rayfield Lawrence
At the same time as Carpenter, and sometimes within the same chambers, KU senior Rayfield Lawrence was advocating for LGBTQ rights at the University. A student from Kansas City, Kansas studying sociology, Lawrence has been at the front of virtually every student protest at KU since stepping foot here four years ago.
“I have made no requests to the university other than to feel safe at a university that I spend almost $30,000 to every year,” Lawrence said. “And I do whatever I can to make sure that is going to happen.”
Lawrence, like Carpenter and others, was involved in the Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk demonstrations that have taken place over the years. The most notable of these demonstrations has been when the group presented 15 demands to the University in 2016 — one of which was the resignation of the School of Social Welfare Dean.
Lawrence, who didn’t get personally involved in protests until he arrived at KU, said he was inspired to get involved by people like Carpenter. Peers like Carpenter, he said, were told “no” again and again, but were motivated to try harder by the people they felt they were speaking for.
“I love the support and efforts that the staff and administration give to use on individual levels. They try to show their support to us in so many intricate and amazing ways,” Lawrence said. “But what we as marginalized and POC [persons of color] need right now is someone who is not going to be an ally but an accomplice. Someone who is vocal and outspoken about injustice is what we need, not someone who is afraid of a challenge or being present — physically and mentally — when they are needed.”
Marsh, who has worked personally with Carpenter and Lawrence, feels that the way in which students protest has changed over the years. It’s gotten louder, and more creative, and sometimes angrier, he admits. The similarity, however, is that students are still aware and demanding they be involved in central discussions at Universities around the country.
“As a protestor or an activist, your challenge is to attract the attention of people whose attention is being asked for by three million different groups,” Marsh said. “What is naturally done is to present that message more loudly, present it more shockingly.”
RULES FOR PROTESTING ON KU’S CAMPUS
For knowing how to safely and legally protest at the University, KU administration has created a Policy on Public Assembly Areas: http://policy.ku.edu/provost/public-assembly-areas-policy
Generally the policy states that to have a formal presence on campus, a group must have:
- Registered with the University Events Committee.
- A proposed date and time for demonstration
- A proposed location for demonstration
- Provided contact information for group leader
- A described manner of the protest (“number of speakers, size, and material of displays and/or equipment)
This registration must take place 7 days in advance of demonstration
Demonstrators must understand that demonstrations are approved on a “first come first-served basis”