THE DAILY
MISSISSIPPIAN
Monday, October 19, 2015
Volume 104, No. 40
T H E S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I S S I S S I P P I S E R V I N G O L E M I S S A N D OX F O R D S I N C E 1 9 1 1
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Tensions build after protest, rally on Friday Sigma Pi member assaulted by five students CLARA TURNAGE
dmmanaging@go.olemiss.edu
PHOTO BY: TAYLOR BENNETT
Kyler Campbell and other pro-flag protesters leave campus followed by the participants of a rally held in removal of the state flag from campus Friday.
LOGAN KIRKLAND dmeditor@gmail.com
The arrival of members of hate groups on campus after a rally Friday leaves students anxiously awaiting the Associated Student Body Senate vote on a resolution to remove the state flag from school property Tuesday. Students who organized the rally said they expected opposition, and were prepared to meet it. Buka Okoye, president of the University’s chapter of the NAACP said he is optimistic the senate will pass the resolution during Tuesday’s meeting. The meeting will be held at 7 pm in the Law School Auditorium. “I definitely believe the KKK showing up applied more pressure on ASB,” Okoye said. He said the decision will
then be left for the administration of the university to remove the flag. Okoye said this decision will show if the University sides with the Klu Klux Klan or with the students. “We are anticipating what decision they will make,” Okoye said. Allen Coon, president of College Democrats, said seeing these members on the university’s campus enforces the fact that the flag needs to come down. “This is a symbol intricately linked to hate and racial oppression and these ideas of white supremacy,” Coon said. “Students are being hurt emotionally.” Minutes before the rally junior Dominique Scott sat on the steps of the Lyceum looking up at the state flag that flapped above. “I’m trying to be fearless as possible,” Scott said. “I’m not
gonna to lie, I’m absolutely terrified.” Students and faculty members flooded into the Circle until a crowd of several hundred people stood to view the rally. Participants lifted signs displaying messages such as, “This is our University too,” “#whataboutus?,” “I am more than a flag” and “Straight outta Patience.” Chats bellowed from the circle and could be heard throughout campus. Scott came on stage as the first speaker at the rally. She said the students on campus should be united for progressive change. Scott told a story about her decision to come to the University, she said she was scared of the history of violence and discrimination towards minorities in Mississippi. After coming here, however she said
she found the University’s community to be accepting. “With that community there also comes these symbols that surround me, that make me feel I don’t belong here,” Scott said. Scott said holding onto these symbols of white supremacy and exclusion perpetuates the stereotypes that follow the University of Mississippi and the state as a whole. “In trying to keep the Mississippi state flag, we are focusing on the past instead of the future. We are looking to things that the university used to be,” Scott said. “We are not giving the University a space to grow into something it can be.” Scott referenced the non-discrimination statement in the Associate Student Body constitution and urged ASB to
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A Sigma Pi student was attacked on campus in early October and suffered a lung contusion, ruptured eardrum, several broken teeth and a concussion, according to a source familiar with the incident who was interviewed by The Daily Mississippian this weekend. Jeremy Boyle was working on his homework in the dining room of the Sigma Pi fraternity house around 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, when he saw someone in the backyard and went outside to investigate, the source said. He found five men in the yard. One was wearing a black face mask, and the others were in “pledge attire” from another campus fraternity, the source said. Boyle, a junior accountancy major from Pennsylvania, was treated in the University of Mississippi Health Center and then transferred to Baptist Memorial Hospital. The Daily Mississippian contacted the University Police Department on Friday and Saturday for an update on the investigation and a copy of the police report, and was told information on the case would not be available until Monday. The Daily Mississippian also contacted the Office of Conflict Resolution and Student Conduct on Friday. Director Aniesha K. Mitchell declined to comment on the case. The Daily Mississippian will continue to report on this case as it develops.
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