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Plans to Prevent Further Racial

Ignorance
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 Contributing Author
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February 20, 2019
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By: Grace Sewell 

On the afternoon of February 6th I received and email from Bryant’s Vice
President for Student Affairs John Saddlemire, titled “Alleged Racial
Incident”. The email, addressed to all Bryant University students, spoke of an
incident where “racial bias” was received by a student on
campus. Saddlemire went on to explain how racist behavior is not tolerated at
the university and an investigation was occurring.  

From speaking with other students, I had already heard what happened. On
February 4th, Quinton Law posted his account of what happened to his
Facebook page. Law, an African American senior who plays football and is
president of the Bryant Democrats, was walking down at the townhouses when
the racial attack occurred.  

Since seeing both the email from administration and Law’s Facebook post, I
decided to reach out to hear what he had to say. Law was extremely gracious
for my interest in his story and we spoke about everything that was going on. 

Law said “it’s much bigger than just my incident now” referring to
administration’s involvement as well as legal implications that the situation has
caused. Though I assumed administration’s involvement would be to address
the issue of racial conflict on campus, I was surprised to hear they were more
concerned with Law’s Facebook post.  

Aside from the email sent by John Saddlemire two days following the incident,
the student body as a whole has not heard anything else from administration.
The community is lacking answers to the consequences of this behavior as well
as further information addressing how the university plans to prevent further
occurrences.  

Following his post, Law has been contacted by several students on campus that
have had similar situations occur to them and in some cases they were much
more severe. From communicating with Law, he did not want to specifically
get this one student in trouble, rather bring up the existence of racial divide and
understanding on campus.  

Law wants students at Bryant University to be able to share their negative

experiences here and give them an outlet for support rather than being silenced
by administration who wants to keep Bryant’s reputation in good standing by
sweeping situations like these under the rug.  

Preventing students from sharing their stories, especially those including

behavior not tolerated at Bryant University goes against our right to the first
amendment.  

Law knows well that Bryant University has the Center

for Diversity and Inclusion on campus. Though this center exists, it has not
helped in preventing situations as such. In addition, he spoke of the
Multicultural Student Union club; however, he feels that only those of color are
the ones attending meetings. Law is working with other clubs in hopes to make
an event centered around diversity where everyone feels welcome as the ones
who are not culturally diverse would benefit most from the information given.  

Now, Law, as well as many others are doing their best to not let instances of
racism be “let go” and rather hold the students accountable for their actions.
Starting a conversation about diversity and inclusion as a community is where
the change will start.