This weekend, students and members of the Baylor NAACP chapter started a Twitter campaign titled #BURememberWhen.
The trend, which officially started on Sunday, had students use the hashtag to tweet about racially insensitive interactions they’ve had with students and professors in class and on social media.
The purpose of the campaign is for multicultural students who attend Baylor to share their experience with racism and prejudice during their time at the university in order to draw attention to and change campus culture.
“#BURememberWhen my roommate threatened to have me deported every time I made her mad,” tweeted @baileeybear.
Throughout the day, students tweeted about threats and comments they’ve received from students and professors. Comments made include assumptions about race and admission based on participation in Baylor athletics.
Some students even used the hashtag to apologize to those who have felt the prejudices of certain people at Baylor.
“To everyone on this #BURememberWhen hashtag, I’m sorry for the way white Baylor (myself included) has failed you. I know we can do better,” wrote Andy Clark (@andyclarkk).
Baylor NAACP wrote via Twitter that they have been asking university administration for certain changes for the past three years. The organization has nine specific demands that it would like Baylor to take into consideration. These include hiring a chief diversity officer, requiring all students and faculty to attend cultural awareness training, increasing the campus diversity fund, creating a Historically Black Colleges and Universities domestic exchange program, hiring more faculty of color, diversifying guest speakers and performers, improving efforts to recruit multicultural students, conducting an annual cultural climate check and adding a multicultural center.
“Even though minorities love Baylor’s Christian mission, confronting issues involving race can make attending this university extremely hard,” said Marshall junior Staylen Roach. “At the end of the day, all we minorities are asking Baylor University to do is to act out its Christian mission right here at home.”
Baylor University’s student population is 35.4 percent minority, with 64.6 percent being white. Baylor’s faculty minority rate is only 13 percent as of Fall 2015, according to Baylor Institutional Research and Testing.
After an incoming freshman tweeted about having second thoughts about coming to Baylor because of diversity concerns, Baylor NAACP encouraged the individual to take action instead.
“The school is still a good school. You’re going to face adversity anywhere.” the organization replied. “Can’t run from the issues. Just help make it better.”
Baylor is not the only college in Texas facing diversity issues. Texas Christian University in Fort Worth has a minority student population of only 21 percent. Although at the University of Texas at Austin minority students make up 56 percent of the population, according to their institutional reporting website. Texas State University seems to have nearly even percentages of white and minority students, according to their University Marketing website.
“I’ve never had to encounter anything like that,” Kameron Holmes, a senior at Texas State University said about his experience with racism.
Baylor NAACP meets the first and third Tuesdays of every month at 7 p.m. in the SUB den.
