Harvard students rally for undocumented students, Eradicate Boston College Racism holds demonstration, BC community comes together “for love,” SAID holds Students Against Trump rally at Northeastern
On Monday, around 200 students congregated on the steps of Widener Library and called on Harvard University to protect undocumented students after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, according to the Harvard Crimson.
The rally was organized by students in a class called “Performing Latinidad.” They also created an accompanying petition to Harvard administrators that has garnered over 4,000 signatures.
Laura Veira-Ramirez ’20, who has been involved in immigration advocacy since she was in high school, urged the audience to “fight” the anti-immigrant rhetoric that helped propel Trump to victory.
“The fact that people didn’t think of [his victory] as a reality allowed this to happen,” Veira-Ramirez said. “We have to fight now, and we should have started fighting a long time ago.”
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The same night at Boston College (BC), a group called Eradicate Boston College Racism held a rally on O’Neill plaza. A couple hundred students and faculty attended, according to The Heights.
Chad Olle, a member of Eradicate and LGSOE ’17, asked the crowd how many people had heard someone talk about the importance of unity and civil dialogue over the past week. He said that Eradicate disagrees that all opinions are worth listening to. Instead, Eradicate wants to challenge Trump’s rhetoric and his message.
“If the dialogue begins with you telling me that me or somebody I love is not valued, does not matter, is not worthy of respect, does not deserve equal opportunity, then you need to go look up ‘civil’ in the dictionary,” he said. “Because where I come from, that is not how a civil conversation starts with you telling someone that they’re not valued, that they don’t matter.”
He believes that the dialogues need to be reframed, and that it is the job of administrators to take responsibility for changing these dialogues.
“Vague calls for unity are not enough,” he said. “We need to take a stand.”
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The Heights also published an article on reactions among the BC community since Trump’s election. Highlights include:
- The Graduate Student Association voted unanimously on Wednesday morning to internally approve the idea of turning BC into a sanctuary school, where undocumented students are protected by the university.
- In a Facebook post on Wednesday night, Eradicate Boston College Racism released a bias, oppression, and hate crime report form. Eradicate is looking to inform allies, collect data, and direct students to support.
- In an email following an altercation between two roommates, BC Dean of Students Thomas Morgan encouraged students who have been victims of bias-motivated intimidation or actions to report their experiences to Residential Life, the Office of the Dean of Students or the BC Police Department.
- Eve Spangler, a sociology professor, spoke with her students about incidents of hate following the election. (trigger warning: partially-censored anti-gay slur)
A gay student was walking across the lobby in McElroy Commons. He passed by a group of three white, male students, who watched him cross the room. As he walked by, one of the men allegedly said, “God, I’m so glad that Trump is president, ‘cause now I can say I hate f-gs.” Another added, “Yeah, f-g bashing is going to be okay now.”
This hate and discrimination do not only apply to anti-Trump supporters, however.
A male student in the Carroll School of Management, who is known among his friends as an outspoken Republican and Trump supporter, was also allegedly the victim of hate speech and threats following the election. The student chose to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
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On Thursday night, around 100 students gathered on Centennial Common at Northeastern University to protest Trump’s election, according to The Huntington News. The rally was organized by Students Against Institutional Discrimination (SAID), which has also been circulating a petition calling on President Joseph E. Aoun to denounce acts of hatred and make Northeastern a sanctuary campus.
Towsif Ahasan, a junior economics and business major, called for change to be made at all levels of government, especially within states.
“What I am interested in is material change. We have to make a difference at the state and local level now,” he said to the crowd. “People of color […] matter in New York and Massachusetts, but they matter in Idaho and Kansas too.”
Ahasan also encouraged students to oppose Trump by any means necessary.
“Exercise your Second Amendment right,” he said through the megaphone. “Let’s make the [National Rifle Association] NRA regret giving us the right to bear arms.”
Boston Student Activism 