Students continue to feel aftermath of convocation

Reflecting on the consequences of August demonstration

By Julia Abuzzahab julianna.abuzzahab@marquette.edu

Nearly eight months after the original New Student Convocation Aug. 25 2022, some of those who participated in the demonstration are still affected by the aftermath.

Nearly 15 minutes before the convocation started, ten students holding signs walked in front of the stage demonstrating in an effort to hold Marquette accountable for how students of color are treated on campus and by administration. The students eventually made their way to the stage, still staying silent, but started chanting later into the demonstration.

Their demonstration resulted in all of the students being sent through the student code of conduct process because they violated Marquette’s demonstration policy.

Eventually, Marquette ended up postponing the event due to the demonstrators’ “disruptive nature.”

The student conduct process responds to violations of the standards of conduct. Students are sent a letter specifying the charges as well as a date, time and location for a student conduct hearing.

The demonstrators’ original punishment was a $300 fine, a written apology letter, 20 hours of community service and to write an educational program on the demonstration policy. On top of that, all were placed on probation which forced student leaders to step down from their positions.

Two of the participants of the demonstration were the first all-Black ticket in Marquette University Student Government history: Bridgeman Flowers, a junior in the College of Education and former president of MUSG and Samari Price, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences and former executive vice-president of MUSG. Both were forced to step down from their positions as a result of being placed on probation.

Flowers said the entire conduct process lasted from September until around the end of October.

Despite being on stage for about an hour, Flowers said he never have imagined that the effects of his actions would still impact him months later. He said the demonstration became bigger than anything he thought it was ever going to be.

“Your one little situation can impact an entire university of thousands and thousands of people. I just feel like that really grounded power but also you never realize how impactful you can be until you’re in that situation,” Flowers said.

When the demonstrators decided to go on the stage, Price said it was just a bunch of students who were tired and wanted to better the experiences of people of color on

Marquette’s campus.

“Every institution that you can think of there’s always going to be some underlying flaw of it. I feel like as students of color, it’s always hard to find people that can get our input on stuff but also advocate for us when we aren’t in those spaces. And because of a lot of the vacancies that Marquette has makes it hard for people to advocate for us the way that we need them to,” Price said.

Another student who demonstrated, Teresa Godinez, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, also didn’t expect the situation to go as far as it did and found that it was difficult to navigate campus post convocation. She said it was difficult to stay in an environment where she didn’t feel wanted in the first place.

“The question always comes up, ‘Are you proud to be at Marquette?’ and I found that question to be very hard whenever people would ask,” Godinez said. “Is Marquette proud to have me? Is Marquette proud to have us? And at that moment, and just all the aftermath of going through conduct and stuff, it definitely didn’t feel that way.”

At the end of the day, Godinez said the demonstration was them being student leaders and sticking up for what they thought was right. Godinez said that within itself is empowering — sticking to their own morals and values and standing their ground.

Nadxely Sanchez, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said when she and the others were at the demonstration, she hoped administration would want to have a conversation about their frustrations. She didn’t expect them to be sent through the code of conduct process.

“Convocation … just for the duration that it was, I didn’t see that the response that we got [from the university] was equivalent to what happened,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said she suffered a panic attack during her conduct hearing, which administration dismissed until her advisor spoke up.

Each student going through the hearing process is allowed to bring an advisor. The student must alert either the hearing officer or the Student Conduct Board chair in writing at least two days prior to the hearing. An advisor could be a staff or faculty member, friend, family member or resident assistant.

Now, Sanchez said she is scared to go to the Alumni Memorial Union and other areas on campus. She said there’s a lot of setbacks the conduct process has created because she’s scared the university will extend her probation or do something above probation, like expulsion — which she is held to until after graduation.

Compared to the duration Godinez was on the stage to the length of her conduct hearing, she said it was much longer.

“It was intended to be an educational process, yet it felt very dehumanizing, treating us like criminals, treating us like we did something horrible,” Godinez said. “I wish no student of color to ever go through those hearings the way that we did. Just the emotional distress that I felt before the conduct hearing, after … and waiting for the news was a different type of anxiety.”

Ultimately, Godinez said she was very careful disclosing information to other students because she feared retaliation from the university.

Flowers said probation will last until May 26 and started the day the ten of them received their conduct letter.

Flowers also said the students all received different punishments.

Flowers and Price received suspension abeyance, meaning if they do anything against the rules before probation ends, they would be suspended for an entire year. Suspension would mean having to withdraw from classes and not being able to apply for classes for the following semester.

“It’s also even weirder because the punishment that we got [Flowers and Price] they said was designed for people who commit drug violations and alcohol violations, so to equate what we did to that,” Flowers said. “They say it’s for people who committed it repetitively … but this is the first time we’ve ever been on conduct and this is the punishment they