Hourglass Exercise

Twenty-two people were arrested and three university police officers were injured during a protest on campus Friday.

All of the 22 arrested were students, 21 were taken to County Jail and a 17-year-old high school senior was released into his parents’ custody.

More than 200 demonstrators, most of them students, were protesting one of the items on the Board of Regents meeting agenda, a plan to require a class in cultural diversity for all faculty. The protest was organized by two newly formed campus groups, Students Against Racism and the American Student Organization.

“They should not have come at us,” said Jonathan Walterson, president of Students Against Racism. “We would have remained loud, but peaceful. We were doing what we believed in. The university must do more to promote diversity.”

Brian Allen, a senior biology student and president of the American Student Organization, said his group will continue protesting. “We’ll do whatever it takes to keep the regents from caving into every demand that comes along,” he said. “Our faculty do not need additional training in diversity. Many of our faculty aren’t even from this country.”

The regents did not take action on the new requirement. They decided to study the matter more and discuss it again at their next monthly meeting, which will be held May 16 in Regents Hall.

University Police Chief R. Barclay Peterson gave the following account of the events that lead up to the student arrests and the aftermath.

“First they were gathered around the fountain at Central Mall, Peterson said. "One group was chanting, ‘No more racism’ and the other was saying ‘Stop diversity.’ Then they started marching toward Regents Hall, where the regents were meeting. They were disrupting classes. When they were asked to disperse, all hell broke loose.”

“The two groups never began fighting, but they kept screaming at each other as though they would begin a brawl at any second,” Peterson said. “There never would have been a problem if they simply would have moved back when we asked them. Instead, both groups decided to gang up against the police.”

Peterson said the two groups began the rally at noon. The regents had been meeting since 8 a.m. and were on their lunch break in the Student Union from noon to 1:30 p.m. The first item on their afternoon agenda was the class requirement.

At about 1:20 p.m. Peterson said he called in the extra officers because “the demonstrators just got too loud and rowdy. We asked them several times to disperse and go back to the fountain, where the rally was to be held, but they would not. They shouted at each other even louder, and some of them began throwing things.”

Peterson said by 1:25 p.m., the demonstration was at its worst and most of the protesters started shouting directly at the police and began throwing things at them.

Peterson said that three of his officers were injured when they were hit by stones or bottles. Officer Andrea Wilson was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital with a gash on her forehead. She was the first officer hit, Peterson said. Officer James Nelson and Sgt. Jerico Turner were taken to Community Hospital with bruises they received from thrown items, Peterson added.

“We’re not against rallies,” Peterson said. “They can hold them all they want, as long as they get a permit from the university. But we don’t want them to get out of hand. We don’t want our officers hurt. They can rally, but other peaceful students also have the right to attend classes without being disrupted by shouting and violent demonstrators.”