From November 16
Hate crimes are on the rise all across the country since the end to a turbulent presidential campaign last week, and now the nation’s students are taking action, including at UNM.
In a stand of solidarity against hate, University students and faculty — along with other local citizens — took part in the national #OurCampus movement against hate by staging a national walkout on Wednesday.
The event’s organizers called students to action by way of a nationally-distributed Walkout Toolkit, which lists organization methods, de-escalation tactics for demonstrators and a list of goals and demands.
“We reject this white supremacist, rapist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, classist, misogynistic, queerphobic and racist system,” a message from #OurCampus/SactuaryCampus reads. “(Our goal) is to provide a space for (minority students) to gather in power and have a platform to speak.”
The toolkit also expressed solidarity with the anti-Dakota Access Pipeline movement.
“The University must place the safety of its students first and foremost,” the message continued. “We are rooted in radical love for one another and a refusal to accept mistreatment of ourselves or our loved ones.”
Movimiento Estudantil Chicano de Aztlan, and KIVA Club, in association with the Black Student Union organized a walkout scheduled to last from 3 to 8 pm yesterday, at UNM.
The walkout drew hundreds of people from all walks of life on Wednesday afternoon.
After initially meeting outside the UNM Bookstore, demonstrators holding signs and condemning the recent uptick in hate crimes and President-elect Donald Trump marched across campus to Scholes Hall, where UNM administrative offices are located, before proceeding to march along Central Avenue.
After blocking traffic at the intersection of University Boulevard and Central Avenue, demonstrators made their way back to campus.
“From Ferguson to Standing Rock, the last few years have set the stage for the future of minorities in this country,” an official statement from the National MEChA Coordinating Council reads in response to the aftermath of Election Day. “We only seek to carve a place for ourselves in this world, and too often that determination for existence is met with hostility.”
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Joshua Heckman, co-chair of UNM MEChA, said it was the hate incidents that occurred on campus last week involving racially charged intimidation tactics including graffiti and other signage — as well as the harassment of a female Muslim student in Zimmerman Library — that prompted the minority student organizations to respond.
Since Nov. 8, 13 hate incidents based on race, religion or national origin occurred at UNM, according to the Office of Equal Opportunity. By comparison, there were 34 such incidents over the previous 44 weeks.
“We’re going to have to stand together,” Heckman said. “To show that we are strong as a student body. We’re going to stand together against these hate crimes, and show people that we’re not going to stand for it on our campus.”
There is ample cause for concern when the man who has been elected to the nation’s highest office resorts to scapegoating tactics to address a nation’s problems, unjustly placing blame on the most disenfranchised members of a society, he said.
Many people are accusing those unsettled by the election’s outcome of beating a dead horse, referring to protesters across the nation as “whiny,” “sore losers” and urging them to “get over it.”
“This isn’t something to ‘get over,’ because we are seeing overt violence,” Heckman said. “To tell us to ‘get over it’ when we are already facing real, physical violence...you don’t just get over it.”
For the past year, the deepest concern surrounding the Trump campaign was distasteful rhetoric, but now that he will be the next commander-in-chief, this is no longer a rhetorical issue, he said.
“This rhetoric is being acted upon, these are actual physical attacks being led,” Heckman said. “This is actually a real threat that could tear families apart. It’s not something to be taken lightly.”
MEChA, KIVA Club and BSU are demanding that UNM administrators protect students, especially those who feel targeted by hate crimes and discriminatory violence, as well as calling for the immediate expulsion of any student found to have committed a hate crime.
University President Bob Frank was seen leaving campus moments before students moved the demonstration to just outside of his office. UNMPD officers also locked the doors to Scholes Hall before the protest arrived.
UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah, after writing in his weekly communique that “attacks on any of us are attacks on all of us,” said about the walkout that he was glad to see students exercising their right to free speech.
While many agreed with the anti-Trump sentiments expressed during the walkout, he said other students may not, and both sides of any conversation deserve a place on campus.
“We will not tolerate any incident against any group, or any person either because of their ethnicity or religious beliefs, or because of their political beliefs,” Abdallah said. “On either side...we all share the same value, which is that nobody at UNM should be targeted for any reason.”
He condemned all hate speech and physical threats of violence, while saying UNM administrators are working to figure out how to support everybody.
The University is a place for ideas to be debated, and for disagreement to occur, Abdallah said.
“We talk about it and we move the needle,” he said.
UNMPD Lieutenant Tim Stump said that while UNM is typically a diverse, tolerant place, those who walk its halls are not immune to this sort of hateful behavior. He said UNMPD is here for the safety of students, and urges anyone to come forward with concerns they may have.
KIVA Club officials said the purpose of the march was to show that resistance against hate crimes at UNM is powerful, and that unity during times of a fractured nation — or in this case, a fractured campus — is vital.
