Hundreds of students, faculty and administrators marched from the Rabb Steps to the Shapiro Campus Center atrium last Thursday to demonstrate solidarity with student activists at the University of Missouri, Yale University and other universities currently protesting institutional racism in higher education. The march was organized the night before by both graduate students and undergraduates, including members of the Brandeis Black Students Organization and Heller School programs.

As part of the demonstration, organizers demanded that the University publicly voice its opposition to racist attacks made against black students on campuses nationwide. Interim President Lisa Lynch wrote in an email to the community the following day that she supported the demonstration, stating, “University campuses such as ours should be at the center of our national dialogue about race and should not sit passively on the sidelines pretending these are issues that don’t apply here.” Lynch called upon the University to recruit a more diverse student body, faculty and staff as well as creating an inclusive campus with diverse pedagogy. She implied that the office and position of the VP for Diversity and Inclusion — which the University has been developing since last semester — would create institutional metrics to keep the University accountable to these promises.

However, Shayna Jones, a first-year Master of Public Policy student at Heller who helped lead the event, told the Justice in an interview after the demonstration ended that the main focus of the march was to state that “this is not okay, that the issues that we’re seeing at Mizzou is everyone’s story. It’s the narrative across the board, and sure, it manifested itself in a certain way at a certain time in a certain school, but we deal with silent oppression, silent racism every single day at Brandeis and at large.”

The demonstration comes after student protestors ousted University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe from his position due to inadequate responses to racist incidents and racism in general on that campus. Several shooting and death threats against the Mizzou demonstrators were posted online last Tuesday, which prompted the demonstration of solidarity at Brandeis.

Students at Yale University have similarly protested after an email from an associate master of a residential college criticized a separate email sent by Yale administrators that urged students to be culturally sensitive when selecting Halloween costumes.

In an interview with the Justice, Heller student Christian Perry M.B.A./M.P.P. ’16 said he helped organize the event after receiving a text message from a friend showing a call to action from Mizzou students, which asked universities nationwide to show support for their actions on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Maryse Pearce, M.B.A. ’17 told the Justice after the rally that the event was organized mainly between the hours of 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. the previous night as a collaboration between undergraduate and graduate students. Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 followed up in an email to the Justice saying, “There was no single head. It was something everyone had been planning.” Also critical to the organization process was Racial Minority Senator Bethlehem Seifu Belaineh ’16, who created a Facebook event for the rally titled “BLACKOUT: In Solidarity with Mizzou,” and encouraged attendees to wear black and “stand in solidarity and allyship.”

The demonstration began at 1 p.m. on the Rabb steps as demonstrators joined together and chanted. Several students then stepped forward and gave unplanned speeches about their personal experiences with racism and white supremacy.

Macklin then delivered a prepared speech, reading, “When did race become a concept that can and should only be talked about in Black spaces? When did race become a Black problem, and not a national problem? … To those who are against us: we are not afraid of your words. We are not even afraid of your guns. You can shoot Martin. You can kill Malcolm. You can even murder Mike. And you can shut down the students at Mizzou. But you cannot silence us all. Because we are moving our people towards a liberation that has long been denied. And we cannot stand it anymore. The world is watching. Make your move.”

At this point, the demonstrators clustered together — filling the entirety of the Rabb Steps — and recorded video footage of their show of solidarity to send to students at the University of Missouri. Many demonstrators voiced their support and encouragement for the Mizzou students in the video.

As students began marching from the Rabb steps to the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium, they chanted, “Racism is nothing new, we stand with Mizzou” and “Hey hey! Ho ho! White supremacy has got to go!” among other chants. The crowd was large enough that it had to stop several times to wait for the rest of the group to catch up. Several students were deeply affected by the event, leaving or stepping aside temporarily to compose themselves.

As the group gradually filled the whole of the Atrium, several students tabling for Kindness Day, which was the same day, were forced to withdraw or move their tables to the side to accommodate the size of the rally. Among other administrators, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel and Dean of Students Jamele Adams observed the event from the edge of the cluster at the SCC. When the demonstrators had settled in the SCC, Interim Director of the Intercultural Center Janae Johnson voiced her support for the demonstrators' actions.

While occupying the SCC Atrium, event organizers encouraged students to stand up and share their stories of experiences with racism and discrimination. Common themes among speakers included that being an African American student at a university is being part of a historically exclusionary institution and calls for generating more discourse on the issues black students face and discussions outside of the African and Afro-American Studies department.

One of many speakers, Khadijah Lynch ’16 spoke about receiving online rape and death threats in January after her tweet that she had “no sympathy” for two New York Police Department officers killed in Dec. 2014 was published on the conservative news website Truth Revolt by Daniel Mael ’15. “Now when I come to school, every single day is agony,” Lynch said. She clarified that the University did not do enough to make her feel safe and protect her after the incident, particularly stating that “the administrators did nothing to reach out to me. Andrew Flagel didn’t reach out to me, no one reached out to me.” Lynch was an undergraduate department representative for the African and Afro-American Studies department at the time of the tweets.

Adams addressed the group as well, saying that he was grateful for the opportunity to speak and proud of the students for demonstrating, adding that “it’s not easy to hear this. … It’s not easy to not want to sometimes wreck something.” Adams said that the diversity within the crowd itself was “the most beautiful part of this moment,” and encouraged students to continue holding him, and the rest of the University administration, accountable. Though some demonstrators began to disperse from the SCC Atrium at 2:30 p.m., the speakers asserted that they would hold the space as long as possible, eventually ending the demonstration entirely at around 3:30 with a promise for future actions.

Macklin wrote in her email to the Justice that the Student Union stands with the demonstrators, noting that many Union members are themselves students of color.

Pearce added in her interview, “I think it also sort of helps in creating a space to talk about how these issues are also very much alive on Brandeis’s campus, and how this isn’t something that just happens. This isn’t something that happens in the South, the Midwest, that we’re not immune from it.”

—Editor’s Note: Several Justice staff members participated in the rally.