Purdue Students Stage 'Die-In' In West Lafayette

Just as the campus community was leaving its offices and classrooms to go out into the midday rain, a group of community members calling itself the Purdue Social Justice Coalition was preparing to interrupt those midday activities.

Emerging from the Purdue Union, several group members walked to nearby State Street and splayed themselves across the busy thoroughfare, forcing campus police to divert traffic. Others held signs with slogans like “respect existence or expect resistance” and “black lives matter.” Still others began to chant as the group, a few dozen strong, started to wend its way through campus.

That chant is a direct reference to a cell phone video of a man in an altercation with New York police. In the video, as officers restrain him, Eric Gardner is heard to repeatedly say “I can’t breathe.” He died shortly after being arrested, but a grand jury in Staten Island last week declined to indict the police officer involved. That set off a second round of protests similar to those that took place after a Ferguson, Missouri grand jury declined to pursue charges against the police officer who shot and killed a black teenager, Michael Brown.

By the time the group reached the Purdue administration building, the rain had picked up and the throng thinned by the weather, but a couple dozen protesters marched to the president’s office on the third floor, where University Vice President for Public Affairs Julie Griffith had agreed to hear their concerns.

“Are we perfect? No. Do we try to get better? Yes," Griffith said. "We’ll continue to try to do that. It’s important to do that in all of our lives. Again, these are new to me, they are new to the president. We acknowledge them. We’ll work on them.”

That answer, though, didn’t seem to please some of the protestors, who became more vociferous in their arguments and began to raise their voices.

“Racism is a big concern for us in our community here. And the reason we feel this way is that institutional waffling or silence is complicit in supporting racism," said Jubin Rahatzad, a PHD student in Curriculum Studies. "Many of us feel – I feel the same way – we’re very passionate. We’ve had enough.”

Ryesha Jackson, who’s pursuing a bachelor’s degree in health and kinesiology, chided the administration for what she sees as a lack of oversight.

“The fact that you don’t know if there’s an issue in Lafayette, and you don’t know if there’s an issue on campus, until today – until we made it an issue – that makes that very, incredibly unsafe for us,” Jackson said.

But then Purdue Vice Provost for Diversity Christine Taylor stepped out of the crowd that had assembled inside and outside of the president’s office.

“In my role, I don’t want you to think that we are numb to it – I personally can’t be numb to it – I have nephews, I have brothers, I have great-nephews and I have all of you," Taylor said. "We’re not numb to this issue and are beginning to work on this. I applaud you for getting involved in the conversation, because we began this at the very beginning of the semester...recognizing it was a justice issue that wasn’t just about that black man, but it was a justice issue about everybody in the United States.”

As the conversation progressed, the protestors began to give ever more detailed examples of the racism they feel isn’t addressed. The group’s leader, Anthony Ramos, says it’s not uncommon to have epithets – or worse – flung from passing vehicles.

“It is known that you have to prep your friends to get used to being screamed at from cars, to get used to get thrown at you," Ramos said. "I had a banana thrown at me once. I don’t know how many times I’ve been cursed at. That’s just from the car; that’s what they do when they’re driving by in the car.”

At more than one moment, it felt like the simmering feelings might boil over. But Vice Provost Taylor worked to align herself with the protestors – themselves a multi-racial mixture of members of the community – and to show them she wasn’t immune to the same sorts of behaviors.

“I’m a member of this community as well," Taylor said. "I have felt those things. Let’s don’t get it twisted. Just because I work in Hovde, that means nothing. Because in Lafayette and West Lafayette, I’m black.”

A study done by a Purdue professor recently showed members of the school’s growing Chinese student base tend to stay in groups with other Chinese students – there isn’t a lot of blending outside the cultural group. That’s not evidence of racism, but it does speak to the culture of the campus and whether groups of people from different backgrounds tend to mingle.