02/28/07 Coon Alert: Fuck Hampton University Administrators

When it comes to validating discrimination and repression through policy, Hampton’s administrators are building a formidable track record.

Not more than a year after the HBCU’s School of Business enacted policy prohibiting its students from styling their hair in locks and cornrows, administrators are now telling gays (and straight people for gay rights) that they can’t organize; that they can’t even petition the university for the right to organize until 2008. The Office of Student Activities has denied the Students Promoting Equality Action & Knowledge (SPEAK) governance status, citing an archaic moratorium on the formation of student groups. Basically, the school's code says that a new student group can form if and only if an old one falls off.

But this is nothing new.

In 2003, the university lost a $55,000 grant when its former president, JoAnn Haysbert, gave the go-ahead to confiscate 6,500 school newspapers after learning that her letter defending the school cafeteria’s sanitary conditions wasn’t printed on the front page. She was within her rights, some argued, because the Hampton Script was owned by the university, not the students. Still, the papers were suppressed and destroyed all because of a slight to Ms. Haysbert's ego.

In 2005, when criticized for vigorously pursuing the expulsion of seven non-violent students protesting the Iraq war, Bennie McMorris, vice president for student affairs, defended the university’s actions by citing the Hampton University Official Student Handbook, which mandates that all protests be approved beforehand by Campus Police.

That Hampton University—a school ran by black people, for black people—has become less conducive for black students to freely express their political opinions, sexuality, and even hairstyles than some white schools is starting to reflect in its enrollment rates. Between September 2004 and September 2005, aggregate enrollment fell from 6,154 to 5,740. Perhaps if Hampton’s administrators were to openly advertise the university as the repressive breeding ground for black conservatism that it is slowly becoming, students would either demand change or patronize other universities en masse.

In its mission statement, Hampton University boasts of being “committed to multiculturalism.” Its website bills the school as “a dynamic, progressive institution of higher education… a place that will… broaden your outlook and expand your opportunities” and goes on to claim that the “university’s sights… are set squarely on the horizons of the global community of the 21st century.” But that’s bullshit. Increasingly, Hampton’s policies and practices are in direct opposition to the mission of HBCUs as it pertains to nurturing an academic climate that is sensitive to the cultural nuances of African Americans.

If anyone else feels the same way, call and tell them.

Office of the President, (757) 727-5231
VP for Student Affairs, (757) 727-5264