At 10:30 a.m. Monday, three girls wearing sandwich boards with provocative signs, each with a different message, walked slowly up Sheridan Road. Students passing by glanced quickly at their signs – “I can’t afford a North Face,” “I am one of 87 black sophomores,” “My top 3 sororities didn’t want me,” – and then kept walking.
Weinberg freshman Katie Raynolds didn’t say anything to the girls when she passed them at the time, but later said their signs made her think about inequalities faced by students on campus.
“I felt guilty walking by them in my North Face,” Raynolds said. “It’s interesting, but I don’t know what I can do about it as one person.”
The students were participating in a demonstration as part of InclusiveNU, a new initiative formed as a “public awareness campaign,” said SESP senior Alexandra Sims, president of Promote 360 and the organizer of the demonstration. While the students who were involved came from an array of organizations at NU, they had a common goal, Sims said.
The demonstration, held in shifts by about three to five students at a time from 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m., was partly to gauge the student body’s reaction to the messages.
SESP junior Stephanie Arias stood by the Arch wearing a sign that read “I was asked if I wear my hijab in the shower.” She said the demonstration was organized in light of the recent blackface incident on campus and the alleged discrimination against several black Washington University in St. Louis students at a club in Chicago.
“We’re trying to raise awareness about how there are different levels of inequality on campus outside of just racial tensions and racial discrimination,” Arias said.
Arias said the signs’ messages did not necessarily apply to the person holding them.
“(The messages are) something we’ve heard from someone else on campus, so it’s just as important as if it were happening to me,” she said.
Sims said every statement served a different purpose.
“We hope to capture the entire community,” she said. “They’re quotes that reflect a different social group or community in the NU student body. It’s about inclusion and exclusion of all sorts, whether it’s socioeconomic, racial exclusion, by fraternity or any kind of segregation on our campus.”
The demonstration gradually drew more attention throughout the day, as students, adults and prospective students and their families stopped the demonstrators to ask them the purpose of their statements.
While Sims was influential in organizing the demonstration, she said about 20 other students wanted to become involved after attending the blackface forum at Norris University Center in early November. She said the new leadership at NU has shifted students’ focus to equality and race relations in their community.
“I feel like, as a senior, it’s the first year when people have come together to create an inclusive community, and I believe that reflects on having a new president,” she said. “(The demonstration) came out of what President Schapiro said at the forum, about it being a catalyst for a larger movement.”
Interim Dean of Students Burgie Howard said the demonstration is part of an ongoing campus discussion after the blackface forum.
“We had a large group gathering at the forum, and then we start to break it apart and really kind of look at the various aspects that bring that turnout,” Howard said. “I think people are saying OK, there are different ways of approaching the situation, and being proactive as opposed to reactive.”
Howard said he observed several people reading the signs while at the Donald P. Jacobs Center. Students wore the signs while standing on the sidewalk near the Arch and while walking through campus during the day.
McCormick senior Hathai Amy Eamrungroj said she has recently noticed an increase in discrimination awareness on campus.
“I feel like not a lot of us talked about our issues enough until now,” she said. “I’ve been here for quite a while … it’s nice to see students be a lot more aware lately.”
Eamrungroj said she has been surprised by the nature of some questions students have posed to her and her friends at NU.
“I’m from Thailand,” she said. “Some people ask, ‘Do you ride elephants in your country?’ Like, I’m from Bangkok. It’s a city.”[email protected]
