If the University does not bow to Students for a Unified Emory's demands, the already tense race relations at Emory will "explode," College senior Amos Jones said this weekend.
In separate letters sent Monday to Senior Vice President and Dean for Campus Life Frances Lucas-Tauchar and Dean of the College Steve Sanderson, Students for a Unified Emory demanded the permanent removal of KA's charter, an African American studies requirement in the College and more minorities in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. The letter specified a deadline of last Friday for the group's demands to be met, but the group extended the College's deadline until yesterday. Jones said he expected a meeting Monday with Senior Associate Dean of Emory College Peter Dowell.
Jones, a Wheel columnist and a director of Students for a Unified Emory, would not say what steps the group would take if its demands are not met, but said "This thing is explosive, and if they don't act it will surely blow up."
At a meeting Sunday night at the Rollins School for Public Health, Students for a Unified Emory's leaders reiterated their dissatisfaction with University administrators' failure to condemn KA for the 1999 Dooley's Diary photo in which a member appears wearing blackface.
"Thus far you haven't seen any sort of apology or acknowledgement that this was a wrong action," College senior Adnan Zulfiqar said at Sunday's meeting.
By the time the meeting convened, University President William M. Chace had already backed administrators' stipulation that Students for a Unified Emory file its complaint through established University channels.
"This is a matter to be handled within their offices and the offices of student [conduct]," Chace wrote in an e-mail Sunday. "They have spoken wisely and I support their positions."
Dowell, who will be meeting with Students for a Unified Emory instead of Sanderson, who is recuperating from back surgery, said an African American studies requirement is feasible, but said "the question is whether it would be the best way to go about the goals" of the group.
Chace said he received copies of two letters, but would not offer a response. "It's in the proper hands," he said.
"The president of Emory University has no choice but to rebuke the fact that there's blackface in the yearbook," Jones said at the meeting.
Lucas-Tauchar and Dean of Students Darnita Killian, along with Assistant to the Senior Vice President and Dean for Campus Life Bridget Guernsey Riordan and Associate Director of Campus Life Sylvester Hopewell, met with Zulfiqar and Students for a Unified Emory directors Amos Jones, Charley Jones and Marcus Moore Thursday afternoon to discuss the group's demands. In the meeting, Lucas-Tauchar and Killian repeated their statement that no action would be taken against KA unless the group processed its complaints through established channels.
"They have not brought forth a claim to Conduct Council or IFC Judicial," Lucas-Tauchar said. "There's nothing to drag our feet about."
"We explained to them why we couldn't work within the deadlines they put forth," Killian said. "The conduct review process just doesn't work as fast as the letter would have asked us to."
Student Government Association President Moses Kim agreed with the administrators. "I really think that if Amos wants to be as effective as possible he needs to work through IFC," he said.
Kim added that the group's demand for an African American studies requirement would only leave other academic departments agitated.
"If we allow that requirement to be in the general distribution requirements we open a Pandora's box of requirements for other departments," Kim said.
In the Sunday meeting, Moore, the editor in chief of The Fire This Time, said an African American Studies requirement is necessary because many Emory students do not understand the ramification of potentially harmful actions like blackface. Moore said such a requirement would preempt racially charged conduct.
Students for a Unified Emory leaders said they have considerable faculty support, but would not name any individual professors who have expressed interest in its cause. Jones said the University would face increasing pressure unless some immediate action is taken. "We're not disclosing what we have, but this thing is explosive and if they don't act surely it will blow up," he said.
