SERVICE | ADVOCACY
BY TERRY COLLINS
Brother Gary Daniels sparks rally against alleged hate crime at SJSU
I
t really should come as no surprise that an Alpha has stepped right into the firestorm in the wake of an alleged hate crime at San Jose State University that has attracted national attention.
In true Alpha spirit, Brother Gary Daniels, president of Epsilon Mu Chapter, is spearheading the charge as outraged students demand changing the racial climate at SJSU, where, ironically, the “Black Power” statues of 1968 U.S. Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos stand on campus. Last fall, four white freshmen at San Jose State were charged with hate crimes for allegedly harassing their freshman roommate who is black. The students’ alleged atrocities included snapping a U-shaped bicycle lock around the black freshman’s neck, hurling racial slurs at him and barricading him inside their dormitory suite, which also displayed a Confederate flag and a swastika. In the immediate fallout, there was Brother Daniels—also head of the Black Unity Group, a coalition of black-run student organizations on campus—wearing his familiar black Alpha blazer, with his mouth covered in red tape and leading fellow outraged students in mass protest. Daniels made his voice heard by storming the podium during a news conference held by school administrators and the local NAACP on the incident. Brother Daniels called out SJSU President Mo Qayoumi, saying Qayoumi ignored students’ previous concerns about racial tensions on campus for years. He went on to accuse Qayoumi of “mis-governance.” “Last semester, when we were protesting and requesting to meet with you, we were trying our hardest to let you know that something was terribly wrong with the
CENTENNIAL ISSUE
experience that African-American students are having at San Jose State. But you did not want to hear us,” said Brother Daniels, a political science major expected to graduate in 2015. Qayoumi eventually took personal responsibility for the alleged incident. Still, there was Brother Daniels, further stating administrators ignored a 2011 case study called “The Campus Climate,” as a sociology professor cited many SJSU black students considered the campus rife with racial stereotypes. And here is Brother Daniels attempting to make sure there will be changes. “There’s plenty that needs to be done,” Daniels said. Brother Daniels is currently on an 18-person task force examining racial discrimination on campus. Other task-force members include fellow students, some from the local NAACP, and a retired African-American judge who is also in charge of overseeing reforms within the San Jose Police Department. S
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