Kennesaw State’s Student Government Association invited a student activist organization to its Feb. 27 meeting to discuss recent racial incidents on campus and hear proposed solutions which aim to combat these incidents for the future.
SGA President Carly Keller invited KSUnited, a group created after the #takeakneeKSU movement, to the general body meeting held in the James V. Carmichael Student Center. Alexa Vaca, the leader of KSUnited, said the organization exists to emphasize the importance of having students, faculty, staff and alumni coming together to work on changing policy at KSU.
Representatives of KSUnited handed copies of a flyer to SGA members and spoke directly to those attending the meeting. During their announcement, KSUnited asked the SGA to cooperate with them to change university policies regarding hate speech on campus.
On the same day, KSUnited held an open meeting to discuss the demands made to the university that the group has been fighting for since 2015 including strict sanctions for offenders of prejudice and discriminatory actions and speech, the construction of an anti-racist education center that was originally promised in 2009, anti-racist and diversity training for students, faculty and staff, an increase in courses relating to minority history and education within all relevant departments, an end to the policing of social justice work and increased commitment to social justice and an increase in minority faculty and staff to be representative of the student population.
The KSUnited demands were originally created in 2015 when the organization was called “KSU YESbody!” after it formed in response to protests at the University of Missouri.
“When the demands were written, it marked the sixth year of a promise that the university was going to build an anti-racist education center on the Bartow County land, because the Bartow County land has an extremely racist history and the university has never issued an official statement distancing themselves from that history,” current graduate student and former KSUnited president Carlynn Sharpe-Ehui.
KSU acquired the Bartow County land in 2008, which used to be the homestead of Corra Harris, a Georgia author and World War I correspondent.
During the meeting, one student also said that KSU removed its logos from pamphlets handed out by the LGBTQ Resource Center in September of last year. The pamphlets, which included information on gender-neutral pronouns, also disappeared from the LGBTQ Resource Center’s website.
Vaca said that the KSU administration has not been properly communicating information to students regarding the group messages from KSU students that targeted Elijah John, a black student.
“The university administration is not being transparent about [the situation], and they’re not telling us what’s going on, or what’s going on with the investigation,” Vaca said. “Elijah John is feeling very unprotected by the university.”
University Spokeswoman Tammy DeMel said that the university is committed to working with students, faculty and staff to maintain a safe and respectful campus.
“As part of this continued effort, the KSUPD met with several student leaders from RSOs and engaged in dialogue about campus issues,” DeMel said. “The University encourages any student to reach out directly to the KSUPD, Student Affairs or other campus resources if they have concerns about their safety.”
Vaca asked the SGA during the meeting to release a statement condemning “the hate that’s going on, on campus.”
“I think that would really show that SGA does have the best interest of the students [at heart] because historically SGA has been a little bit separate from students,” Vaca said.
Keller responded to the request, letting Vaca and the rest of KSUnited that the SGA was there to listen.
“If there’s one thing we want to spread, it’s love, not hate,” Keller said.
The SGA also mentioned that the elections for next year’s student government representatives will begin on Monday, March 11.
Arielle Robinson contributed to this article.
