Stop the Hate Campaign @ URI: "The Time is Now"

In light the recent offensive, inexcusable events on campus (noted in an email sent to all students, entitled "Memo: From President Dooley," & a list of which may be found on this event's facebook page) Christina Knoll, a URI student, has launched a Student Movement Against Hate Crimes at URI. Christina encourages students and organizations on campus to create anti-hate t-shirts, displaying "I will not stand for hate crimes at URI," and wear them as many times as possible in the coming weeks. T-Shirts are also being printed and handed our for free on campus.

In addition, Christina has organized a demonstration for Wednesday, November 18th at noon. She urges students to meet her on the Quad for a 15 minute moment of silence, protesting hate crimes at URI. Professors on campus will also be alerted about the demonstration and encouraged to host the 15 minutes of silence in their classrooms at noon, too.

We will be in our weekly Wednesday WCenter meeting during this time. I move to have the URI Wcenter tutors participate in this 15 minutes of silence, or -- as I understand we have a mere 50 minutes of time together to reflect and discuss -- at the very least discuss tolerance and/or intolerance with regard to tutoring and the WCenter. While I am aware we already dedicated one meeting to diversity earlier in the semester, these recent events clearly stress the significance of this topic, and I believe mention of it during next week's meeting would be not only be educational but -- if these recent events are any indication -- necessary.

If you are interested in learning more about the Stop the Hate Campaign on campus, contact Christina Knoll via Facebook, or pick up a flyer in the Memorial Union. I will be bringing copies of these flyers to the WCenter tomorrow morning.