Protesters march to TCU to call out alleged systemic racism, push for change
In 2000, Maya Talley earned a scholarship to attend TCU in her hometown of Fort Worth as part of the university’s original class of community scholars.
The program, open to students from about a dozen area high schools, is aimed at increasing diversity on campus by giving opportunities to young people of color from the surrounding community. Talley, 38, loved her time at TCU so much she went back in 2014 to get her MBA. “But you can always do better,” she said.
That’s why she wanted to join a few dozen other people marching down West Berry Street to University Drive on Saturday, stopping outside of the college.
She said she wanted to support the message coming from the TCU alumni who organized the event. They were hoping to bring attention to issues students and staff have been pushing for years, such as hiring more people of color, designating a multicultural center for minority students and bringing in an unbiased consultant to evaluate the racial climate on campus.
The university is still facing a couple of lawsuits alleging racial discrimination — one filed in January by a student and another filed in May 2019 by a former employee. And in February, 11 faculty and staff members penned a letter calling for action to change systemic racism on campus.
Talley, who lives in Arlington, said she hopes TCU will “make sure people are heard and that they’re really looking into — like every other organization — how they hire, who they have on their staff, who they even bring in as students.”
The college said in a statement on Sunday: “TCU fully supports and believes that our students, alumni and the entire university community should share their voices.”
“Chancellor Boschini and all our university leaders are in support of our BIPOC students, racial justice and equality, and are committed to our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives,” the statement read. “Chancellor’s Boschini’s message to our campus community addressing the tragic death of George Floyd, our DEI initiatives and our work with alumni is indicative of the university’s ongoing commitment to making our campus a welcoming place for all.”
The protesters gathered at Travis Avenue Baptist Church on Saturday morning before walking along West Berry Street toward the college with a fleet of police cars trailing behind them. They stopped four times for about two minutes to kneel, symbolizing the more than eight minutes that a Minneapolis officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd until he died.
They also engaged in call-and-response chants such as, “Say her name. Jane Doe.” That was in reference to the anonymous former student who filed a suit in January, claiming she was harassed, discriminated against and physically assaulted.
The message of the protest, according to organizers, was about more than calling for change at TCU — it was about bridging the college and Fort Worth communities that have seemed divided in the past.
Diona Johnson, a TCU alum, said the college has always had its own “bubble that somewhat allows it to not really be intertwined or woven into the rest of the city.” But these communities have a lot in common, she said, including their recent calls for systemic change.
“I thought that this would be a great time to try to bring those two type of groups together for social and racial injustice in the United States, and particularly some issues dealing with TCU in terms of racial discrimination,” Johnson said. “We’ve been fighting the fight to change TCU and make it better for minorities for a while and it seems like we should begin to make these issues more known to the Fort Worth community.”
Johnson has been advocating for reform at TCU since she was a student, when she and two of her peers brought a list of demands to administrators. Those included mandating online sensitivity training for the campus and creating a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech and microaggressions.
In the wake of the Jane Doe suit, 11 faculty and staff members published their “call to action” letter stating complaints from students of color “are not surprising to us.” Changes must be made, they wrote, to address structural racism that has existed on the campus for years. There was a long list of requested actions, like ending faculty benefits cuts and launching investigations into salary gaps.
At Saturday’s events, the protesters were a mix of local residents wanting to speak out against racism and police brutality and TCU alumni calling for change at the school. Alums who spoke with the Star-Telegram emphasized both their love for the university and their view that it needs to do better.
Standing across from the campus, Tauriah Stubblefield, 24, of Arlington, said she loved her years as a student and “would go back right now if I could.” But she also acknowledged from the time she was a child she has learned to live with microaggressions and institutional racism.
She would like to see her alma mater acknowledge complaints of discrimination and embrace calls for change with empathy. Administrators could step forward to say “we know that our Black and Brown community is hurt by what’s going on,” she said. They could provide resources specifically for minority students and staff like counselors.
There have been some good efforts on campus over the years, she said, such as the community scholars program and the TCU Black Alumni Alliance.
She intends to keep pushing the college to do more.
“We’re going to show you how we can still go through what’s going on the campus and we can just keep on going,” she said. “We’re going to make a difference by overcoming that.”
This story was originally published June 20, 2020 at 6:20 PM.
