President Schill wrote an email to discuss racism in which he failed to mention that George Floyd as well as many others that have recently been murdered by police were Black. Schill in his email alludes to the “inclusion” efforts that the university has attempted over the past five years. This list includes:

“adding multicultural curricula, celebrating different heritages on campus, removing vestiges of oppression, and building a new Black Cultural Center.”

There is an undeniable lack of diversity among UO staff. The multicultural curricula that Schill supposedly implemented doesn’t actually exist. He’s added the subject “Black Studies” but hasn’t offered any classes for the subject in the year it’s been “implemented”. And still won’t for the foreseeable next year. This is false progress meant to assuage Black students demand for representation. The space on campus granted to diverse student organizations is limited. As for “removing vestiges of oppression,” that Schill claims to attempt, there are buildings named after racists figures such as Deady Hall that Schill refused to rename because, in Schill’s eyes, Deady’s accomplishments outweighed his racism as demonstrated by his statement regarding this decision:

“his positive acts and importance to the nation, state, and university were noteworthy and of historical distinction. For all of these reasons, I will not recommend that the Board of Trustees dename Deady Hall.”

In addition to buildings, statues such as Pioneer Father, which was erected to commemorate violence against Native Americans, are still standing as symbols of white supremacy and racial intolerance. Not to mention, the BCC was essentially built off campus while Tykeson, which was opened the same year, was able to be built in the center of campus. Black students are not only constantly bombarded with the feeling of exclusion by the administration, organizations geared towards the majority i.e. white students, etc., but are also being physically excluded and pushed from the campus. 

Schill's email in several parts seems to pander to white students with “all lives matter” being the general message with embellishments. The administration has shown students of color time and time again that they do not matter by doing the bare minimum and expecting students to praise their efforts. Do not let this be another one of those times. It is unacceptable how students of color, especially Black students have been marginalized by UO in the past, we ask that the administration listen and take meaningful action. 

After analyzing the UO budget reports it has come to our attention that UO has spent over $6 million since 2018 on the police department alone. The cost of building the BCC was about $2 million dollars in which the university had to take a loan out to build despite it being a demand since 1968. We ask that UO stop the current and future funding of the UO police. In addition, we ask that UO use the funds allocated for the police to actualize the Black Student Task Force’s list of demands re-released this year by the Black Student Collective.

(This petition is an effort in solidarity with Black Student Union. The drafted petition was viewed by BSU in its entirety before being posted.)