Students gather to protest use of 'hate crime' moniker that endangers Buckeyes of color

By: Tatyana Woodall 

As racial tensions between Ohio State administration officials and Buckeyes of color begin to simmer, students gathered outside Bricker Hall Tuesday afternoon to protest the handling of a public safety notice that labeled two late-night assaults on campus as hate crimes. 

The university, before releasing the names of the suspects in an almost unheard of decision, later admitted to mistakenly leaving out the races of the victims, who were both white. 

Sparking outrage amongst students who touted the danger of encouraging ‘reverse-racism,’ on campus, protest organizers came up with a list of demands for holding multiple departments -  including the President herself, accountable. 

“This is a bigger issue than just that email,” Destiny Brown, a fourth-year political science major said. “I saw so many tweets, so many things on Reddit about how we were overreacting, but that tweet with that boy, he said ‘Black hoodlums.’ Do you see how that endangers us every single day?“ 

The mentioned tweet recommended that white students start carrying knives in response to the assaults on the two victims, igniting backlash from many students of color who saw their own lack of safety reflected in the situation.

“The systems and processes of this university have been complacent for far too long,“ Yondris Ferguson, a second-year political science major, said. 

More than 100 were scattered in-between the tree-line and sidewalk, but even close quarters and social distancing did nothing to subtract from the main goal of the day; grassroots activism. 

Later, in response to the building seemingly closing their blinds to the student protest, supporters opted instead to turn the bullhorn towards the windows in efforts to earn a response from those inside. 

One protester holds up a sign that reads “Black Student Safety Matters,” Photograph by Tatyana Woodall.

But as the crowd continued to chant demands for an action plan from President-Elect Johnson, as well as a formal investigation into the Department of Public Safety, it seemed as if the eyes - and ears - of officials inside, remained closed. 

“You can shut your windows, you can shut your blinds, but you cannot shut down the voices of your students,” Ferguson said. “We should not be made to feel like second class citizens in a place that is to be our home.” 

Although both suspects were caught - neither of them were charged with a hate crime under the Clery Act, a law that provides transparency for campus crime policy.

In fact, they were only charged with assault. 

While the protest later concluded with no intervention from campus officials, leaders in the community urged the crowd to keep contacting the university in their free time.

Ferguson, who chose to end his passionate speech with advice to undergraduate students to  acknowledge the Black Lives Matter movement, said this year was a time for justice. 

“To all of these people out here today, I want you to know that we have a revolution coming,” he said. “And the revolution will not be televised.”