THE DAILY
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MISSISSIPPIAN
T H E S T U DE N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I S S I S S I P P I | S E R V I N G O L E M I S S A N D OX F O R D S I N C E 1 9 1 1
Student group demands university remove statue
PHOTO: REED JONES
Student protesters march in the Circle to demand the removal of the Confederate monument on Wednesday. The protesters delivered a letter to campus administrators in the Lyceum also asking for the addition of a hate speech policy and a meeting with members of SASI.
TAYLOR VANCE
THEDMNEWS@GMAIL.COM
“What’s disgusting? Racist statues. What’s outrageous? UM values.” That phrase was chanted by around 60 students Wednesday afternoon during a protest in the Circle and the Lyceum. The protest, organized by Students Against Social Injustice (SASI), delivered a letter to officials in the Lyceum asking the administration to remove the Confederate statue that stands prominently on campus, enact a hate speech policy on campus and have a meeting with SASI members next semester about issues they say plague the campus. Em Gill, the secretary for SASI, has previously met with the administration, but said university
leaders have not been receptive to the organization’s demands. Gill said the university’s inaction shows its leaders are too afraid to remove the statue because they want to honor the wishes of some of the alumni who “pay the university’s bills.” “But, that’s not the right side of history,” Gill said. “That’s not morally just, and I think it’s cowardice that stops them from doing that. (The administration) has the power to remove the statue.” At a speech in the Circle, Gill told protesters that every student has a stake in discussion about Confederate symbols. “Currently, we have a statue on our campus that glorifies Confederates who fought for slavery,” Gill said. “We must change the status quo, protect the students of our campus and each other.” The university has a long history with Confederate monuments and symbols.
Not far from the Confederate statue also stands a statue of James Meredith, the university’s first black student to enroll on campus. The statue has previously been tarnished with a noose and Confederate flag, and the Ku Klux Klan have marched close nearby. Rod Guajardo, a university spokesman, said that university leaders have received and reviewed the letter SASI sent them. “With final exams scheduled next week, they look forward to meeting with our students for a conversation sometime early in the new calendar year,” Guajardo said. At a speech in front of the Confederate statue, SASI vice president Bianca Martinez said it’s time to stop “glorifying racist statues” that promote racism
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UM employees organize first labor union in campus history MCKENZIE RICHMOND
THEDMNEWS@GMAIL.COM
United Campus Workers (UCW) has officially chartered the first registered labor union at the University of Mississippi. The campus chapter will become the “local,” or founding chapter of UCW, for the state of Mississippi, but the charter can expand to any public university within the state. The union was approved by its national organization, the Communication Workers of America. It did not have to seek approval from the university
because it is not a university-sanctioned organization, just a “group of workers who have formed a union,” as Jessica Wilkerson, union co-founder and assistant professor of Southern Studies and history said. Several university professors began organizing last year in hopes of establishing an Ole Miss chapter of UCW, a labor union group originally founded at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Karly Safar, an organizer with the Communication Workers of America, said UCW was initially founded at the University of
Tennessee-Knoxville as a result of a living wage campaign. “Custodians that worked in the dorms, in alliance with professors and students, launched a campaign for the university to pay all employees a living wage,” Safar said. “From there, they expanded to community colleges and most of the public higher educations in Tennessee.” Organizers of the Ole Miss chapter, Wilkerson and Ole Miss reference and instruction law librarian Ellie Campbell, have chartered the all-inclusive labor union with goals to resolve misconceptions about labor unions in “right-to-work
PHOTO COURTESY: THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI ARCH DALRYMPLE III DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
Jessica Wilkerson, union co-founder. states” and to make sure university-employed voices are heard. “We are a wall-to-wall union, and that means we welcome
anyone who gets a paycheck from this university,” Wilkerson said. Mississippi is a “right-towork” state, which mean that unions are not illegal, but union membership cannot be a condition of employment. Wilkerson said the group held informal meetings last fall and in January 2018 to gauge the number of the campus faculty, staff and students who would be interested in starting a union on campus. Before chartering, UCW set a goal of recruiting 50 members
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