“Reason not race” and “Stop all the hate” were chanted by a group of students who marched from the free speech area at the Union to the campus police department yesterday afternoon.
Members of Reason Not Race!, BGSU BAMN and students from an Ethnic Studies 201 class came together to protest what they feel is unfair profiling by local police when dealing with minority parties and events on campus.
“We want the administration and police department to take responsibility to acknowledge that there is a discrepancy in the way that the police department is treating minority student organizations at their functions,” said Bianca Hutchinson, a member of RNR!.
Jante Pratt, a participant in the march, agreed that racial profiling is an issue at the University.
“I feel that it is an issue that several students are being affected by and as a minority student I think that it is my responsibility to step up and try to remedy the situation,” said Pratt.” My goal is to bring awareness to this issue and hopefully have the campus police department set up some type of system where people guilty of racial profiling will be reprimanded for their actions.”
In protest of the unfair treatment, the students made their way to the police department chanting and holding up signs that they had created. As they marched through campus they received stares and demanded the attention of everyone that they passed.
When the group arrived at the police station, they were asked to stand outside while Hutchinson and another representative from the protest talked with the police chief. The anxious students waited in the sprinkling rain on the steps of the station for over a half-hour to hear the results of their meeting.
Hutchinson stepped out of the meeting with a smile on her face. She said that the police chief agreed to participate in an open forum to hear complaints about the issue.
“It was successful. He is willing to listen to us and he was very open, very appreciative of our voice, which is good,” said Hutchinson.
“He wants to work with us, he actually suggested an open forum. I was really surprised. We’re going to push for this open forum so he can hear our views and thoughts.”
Hutchinson and Pratt are in the process of organizing RNR!, BSU and other groups on campus to participate in the forum.
They plan on having a date, time and place set for the event by the end of this week.
