A daylong protest at the UC San Diego chancellor’s office ended inconclusively on Friday evening, as students from the university’s Black Student Union rejected the administration’s response to their demands but chose to withdraw and regroup rather than continue the occupation through the weekend.
The students had been angered by a series of incidents at the UCSD campus — a racist invitation to an off-campus “Compton Cookout” party, a broadcast on student-run television that used racial slurs to mock black student activists, and the hanging of a noose in the university library.
The BSU is set to resume its protest at ten o’clock this morning. I’ll be following the story here as it develops over the course of the day.
9:45 am California time | The UCSD has released a new statement on the campus crisis. It identifies six specific steps that the university has taken in response to the incidents, and affirms the chancellor’s “personal commitment to making diversity issues a continuing campus priority; improving the overall campus climate to welcome and respect differences; improving the compositional diversity of the campus; and developing a curriculum that reflects the multi-cultural richness of the region.”
The statement also contains the news that campus police have been consulting with both local and federal prosecutors on the noose investigation. It makes no mention of the confessed perpetrator’s alleged accomplices.
11:00 am | The Guardian, UCSD’s student newspaper, has printed a statement that it claims is from the student who hanged the noose in the library. She claims that on Tuesday, two days before the noose was found, a friend of hers fashioned it from a piece of rope she had found on the ground, “without thinking of any of its connotations or the current racial climate at UCSD.” She then carried it with her to the library, “and ended up hanging it at my desk.” It was, she said, “a mindless act and stupid mistake.” When she left the library hours later, “I simply forgot about it.”
The student says that she didn’t learn of the noose’s discovery until Friday morning. “Ashamed and embarrassed,” she called campus police and confessed. “As a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by recent issues on campus,” she writes, “I am distraught to know that I have unintentionally added to their pain.”
An editor’s note at the end of the statement says that the paper “has verified the author’s authenticity.”
11:30 am | Because the UCSD Guardian so far only has the student’s apology posted as part of a PDF of today’s paper, I have posted the full statement in text form in its own post.
studentactivism.net 
6 comments
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March 1, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Montana
Instead of an apology there has been steady escalation and now the noose. So, what exactly will the excuses be for this cowardly act that brings up memories of the confederate KKK of the South in their attempts to keep slavery and the non-whites in fear? Is it that are uneducated, is it that their parents planted these seeds of hate, is it that they are live in fear because our President in the white house is not 100% white. This is what the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. These kids follow what their dullard leaders say, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards, they are young and dumb. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think?
March 1, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Jeremy
Just because they’re ignorant doesn’t mean they watch FOX News or are Republicans… come on now.
March 1, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Benito Juarez
Racism begins with our families, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents, people we admire, respect and love.
However, as we grow and mature we come to the realization that what we were told by our family when we were children were slanted lies base on their prejudices. We realize that most people are like ourselves and not so different and want the same things, like a home, steady work, a Medicare plan and schools for our children (if you travel you will see this). We realize that most people are of good hearts and goodwill.
This reminds me of a parable from the good book where a Levite and Priest come upon a man who fell among thieves and they both individually passed by and didn’t stop to help him.
Finally a man of another race came by, he got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy and got down with the injured man, administered first aid, and helped the man in need.
Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his fellow man.
You see, the Levite and the Priest were afraid, they asked themselves, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”
But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
That’s the question before us. The question is not, “If I stop to help our fellow man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help our fellow man, what will happen to him or her?” That’s the question.
This current climate of blaming, mocking or demeaning others for our own short comings, We have had this before and we have conquered it.
Remember “Evil flourishes when good men (and women) do nothing”. Raise your voices with those of us who believe we are equal and we can win this battle again.
March 2, 2010 at 7:27 am
jane doe
Can you tell all these black students who say they are so scared that white-on-black crime is probably the least of their concerns? Someone show them data on crime in SD as it pertains to race.
March 4, 2010 at 3:14 pm
ND
Ummm, just letting you know, that as a UCSD student, these unnecessary protests are taking away from my education because they are disruptive. As to the noose, what they don’t tell you is that the student who placed it there was a minority.
March 4, 2010 at 9:26 pm
LP
As a UCSD student too, seeing the protests and hearing the speakers gave me the most education I’ve gotten in the past 3 years here.
And just because the noose-student was a minority doesn’t mean the harm and pain the act caused is any less valid.