Black Student Union threatens ‘physical action’ if demands not met

Howard Portnoy, Liberty UnyieldingJanuary 24, 2014

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Them sounds like fightin’ words emanating from the Black Student Union at the University of Michigan.

The Ann Arbor News (via The Daily Caller) that the threat to resort to “physical action” if seven demands issued on Martin Luther King Day are not met within a week’s time originated after a talk by “activist” (read “race baiter”) Harry Belafonte (who recently compared conservative business leaders to the Ku Klux Klan). The demands include:

more control over the Black Student Union’s budget,
more housing for lower-income students,
a new multicultural student center,
the requirement of classes teaching all students about the historical treatment of minorities,
access to emergency scholarships for minority students,
increased exposure to library materials, and
a requirement that 10% of the campus be represented by black students.

Shayla Scales, a senior, told the Ann Arbor News:

If negotiations are not complete we will be forced to do more, beginning to increase valiantly our activism for social progress and take physical actions on the University of Michigan’s campus.

It is unclear what Scales means by “physical actions,” though one gets the distinct sense the phrase is not a reference to creative dance.

In addition to Belafonte, the social justice activist group By Any Means Necessary is reported to have rallied on campus, blocking traffic in the process. The organization, which takes its name from a line in a speech by Malcom X, is a strong advocate of affirmative action (aka, minority quotas).

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