Before finals week, the graffiti wall near Bentley Hall was painted with a Black Lives Matter message and a raised fist.
On Wednesday morning — five days after it had been painted — people woke up to find the message on it altered.
The Ohio University Black Student Union originally painted the wall with a fist and #BlackLivesMatter in response to an act of vandalism of a bulletin board in Sargent Hall that occurred earlier in the semester, as well as other acts of racism on campus.
The original mural was spray painted over late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning with a message saying, “Everyone goes through their own shit” and “#alllivesmatter.” It is unknown, at this time, who vandalized the original message.
OUPD Lt. Tim Ryan said the station was informed Wednesday morning that the painting on the graffiti was defaced.
"After an investigation, it was determined that the circumstances did not meet the elements of a crime," Ryan said.
The wall has since been painted over by a separate group with a message about obesity and physical education.
In response, more than 70 students, faculty and administrators met Wednesday at noon in the Multicultural Center to discuss the state of racism on Ohio University’s campus.
Jenny Hall-Jones, interim vice president for Student Affairs and dean of students, said she saw the mural when she was coming into work Wednesday morning around 7 a.m. and immediately notified OU President Roderick McDavis and other administrators. Not too long after, she said her Twitter timeline started “blowing up” as students and student groups began contacting her, asking her what could be done about the situation — hence the noon meeting.
“Black lives matter to me, and black lives matter to Ohio University,” Hall-Jones said. “I’m really sorry this happened.”
Other administrations at the event included Jamie Patton, assistant dean of students, Shari Clarke, vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Alicia Chavira-Prado, special assistant to the vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion, as well as McDavis.
Though McDavis made a brief appearance, he spoke to the group about continuing the dialogue about racism on campus and encouraged reaching out to those in the university community in positive ways.
He later sent an email to students reiterating that message.
"I believe it is important for our University community to meet this challenge head on," McDavis said in the email. "We need to talk about why Black Lives Matter; we need to explore the meaning of this and other movements ... We should all be prepared to acknowledge that we have biases, and we should feel safe enough to discuss and work through these issues on our campus."
Morgan Peterson, president of the OU Black Student Union, said she had an array of emotions when learning what had happened to the mural.
“I figured someone would have kind of just painted over it, but I didn’t think it would get this whole paragraph of ‘all lives matter,’ ” Peterson, a senior studying strategic communication, said.
She also said she and other students decided to write a letter to non-multicultural organizations to advocate for support.
“It’s basically going to be a letter of support from not just the African-American and multicultural organizations on campus, but also the other white organizations to stand behind us,” Peterson said. “If it’s seen that other organizations support BSU and what we, as black students on campus, are doing, then it will help a lot.”
Brittney Williams, a sophomore studying biochemistry, said it’s sad that black students need to repeatedly say their lives matter and that people interpret it differently than what it means.
“You don’t go to a cancer walk and go, ‘But there are, like, other diseases,’ ” Williams said. “We expected people to deface it but not in such an aggressive and just down right disgusting manner.”
Morgan Benson, a junior studying communication studies, said people are just ignorant to the situation.
“It’s insensitive and ridiculous that this has to happen in 2015,” Benson said.
Niara Stitt, a sophomore studying political science, said whoever defaced the wall is helping to perpetuate stereotypes about Appalachia and southern Ohio.
“Pro-black doesn't mean anti-white, and people don't understand that,” Stitt said. “It’s really sad and pathetic to me.”
The need for an increased awareness of problems that affect minority students on campus was discussed during the conversation. Mandatory cultural competency courses and events were spoken about multiple times as a way to educate those in the OU community.
“I think the cultural competency classes would allow people to have difficult dialogues and gain a perspective that they are intentionally excluded from,” Jolana Watson, a senior studying media and social change and a member of BLAC, said. “I think overall cultural competency classes would be a way for the university to prove that they are serious in addressing issues of diversity and that they value diversity and not afraid to address and condemn racism.”
During the discussion, Jai Alexander, a sophomore studying engineering technology and management, said if someone has a Confederate flag, it is seen as just part of his or her culture, but if he has a Black Panther flag he is seen as an “extremist.”
“To the people who won’t come to the events, we need to start building those relationships as black people,” Alexander said. “Some of them don’t have black friends, they’ve never interacted with a black person. They see the media and hear their white friends talking about black people. That’s a problem.”
— Candice Wilder contributed to this report.
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