A group of faculty and student organizations at California State University-Los Angeles have created a list of demands for the university, urging them to “take immediate, concrete steps to eradicate all manifestations of anti-Blackness on campus.”
The petition claims that CSULA administrators “have allowed institutionalized racism to function,” citing a decline in black student enrollment at the school. It also claims the university has “forestalled the potential appointment” of Dr. Melina Abdullah as the dean for Ethnic Studies. Abdullah spearheaded a campaign to attempt to shut down YAF’s Ben Shapiro speech at the school back in 2016 and has labeled the Young Americans for Freedom chapter a “white supremacist group,” leading to a free speech lawsuit against the university which YAF won.
The groups behind the petition, including the Black Student Union, Black Faculty and Staff Caucus, BLM Los Angeles, California Faculty Association, and others are demanding that the school:
Activist faculty and students also plan on taking part in a “tweet storm” on August 5th, to spam the university’s official Twitter account with a flurry of tweets demanding the school appoint Dr. Abdullah as dean and fulfill their laundry list of demands.
These activists do not identify how CSULA, which is home to only 5 percent of white students, promotes “anti-blackness.” The student body is comprised of more than 66 percent Latino students.
Daniel Barron, chairman of the CSULA YAF chapter, noted that the demands will make campus much more dangerous. “From disarming and defunding campus police to ending all contracts with local and county police, these demands will create a campus unsafe for its students,” Barron told YAF exclusively. “Dr. Melina Abdullah and her mob have silenced conservative students before–one can only wonder what else conservative students might have to face in the future.”