The Campus Conversation also touched on issues more recent to this academic year, such as the conflict that occurred over the weekend when an OU student was using a megaphone to shout phrases that included the N-word on Carpenter Street.
Pam Benoit said she still remembers having dinner table conversations about the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
“We recognize the journey is nowhere near over," Benoit, executive vice president and provost of Ohio University, said.
Benoit spoke to about 35 OU and Athens residents during the second Campus Conversation of 2016, which primarily focused on the movie Selma. The event took place Tuesday afternoon in Baker Ballroom.
Last Thursday, the movie Selma was screened for free at The Athena Cinema, 20 S. Court St. The 2015 Academy Award nominee chronicles the 50-mile march Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of peaceful protesters made as they walked in March 1965 from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery. Despite the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many black people continued to face discrimination in the South, so King and his supporters marched to the capital to register to vote.
“The film explores a pivotal event in the American Civil Rights Movement,” Benoit said.
Still, the Campus Conversation touched on problems more recent to this academic year, such as the conflict that occurred over the weekend when an OU student used a megaphone to shout phrases that included the N-word on Carpenter Street.
“It’s disappointing,” Interim Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones said. “We are all kind of reaffirming our commitment saying, ‘These are Ohio University’s values and we need to uphold our values,’ and then to have somebody blatantly not uphold our values is just really disappointing.”
Assistant Dean of Students Jamie Patton was the first speaker at Tuesday’s Campus Conversation.
“We know that we don't live in a perfect world. … It’s important to keep the conversation going,” Patton said.
Benoit brought a greeting from OU President Roderick McDavis, who was unable to attend Tuesday’s event. McDavis was in attendance at the previous Campus Conversation, which was about the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
“If we don't take a step in (a positive direction), it won't get us anywhere,” Benoit said.
Before finals week last semester, the OU Black Student Union painted the graffiti wall near Bentley Hall with a Black Lives Matter message and a raised fist in response to an act of vandalism of a bulletin board in Sargent Hall. The writing on the wall was altered five days after it had been painted.
Spray painted over the original mural were the messages: “Everyone goes through their own shit” and “#alllivesmatter.”
Events like Tuesday's Campus Conversation have made Mara Giglio less shy when talking about race, she said.
“I used to be afraid to say the wrong idea,” Giglio, an Athens resident, said.
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