More than 80 students staged an hour-long sit-in at Western Maryland College yesterday, protesting racial incidents on campus and urging administrators to beef up security and to give students a greater voice.
The students told college president Robert H. Chambers that they should have the power to implement their ideas.
"We need more than representation," said Gerard Millan, a freshman who is black. "We could express ourselves all we want, but if we have no power, it's useless. To be a productive student, you need to take charge of the school and make it your own."
The students and some faculty members gathered in front of the college library yesterday afternoon to protest a semester of racial incidents that came to a head Nov. 1 when someone used gasoline to burn a racial epithet into the turf on the eighth green of the college's golf course.
On Nov. 22, a campus security officer found the same epithet scrawled with a fire extinguisher on the tennis court near the Ward residence hall.
Some students say racial tensions were brewing on campus long before the burning on the golf course. Early in the semester, fliers denouncing blacks, Jews, other minority groups and welfare recipients were slipped under dormitory doors and posted in bathrooms.
And students began receiving a newspaper in their campus mailboxes that advertised racial pamphlets and brochures.
Students and faculty members have begun wearing plaid ribbons, symbolizing their dedication to multiculturalism. The 11 campus of 1,200 has 60 to 80 black students and about 50 international students.
"The problem is out in the open," said Sarah Dexter-Thornton, a freshman who is white and who helped organize yesterday's rally with the college's Black Student Union.
"Now we need solutions," she said, adding that students will be meeting with the administration after the winter break. "We really need your support."
Ms. Dexter-Thornton said she approached the BSU about the sit-in soon after the racial incidents were publicized a week ago.
"I said that I thought there were some problems on campus that the students need to deal with," Ms. Dexter-Thornton said yesterday.
Among the issues discussed yesterday were what Ms. Dexter-Thornton deemed the five commandments of human rights: Every student should have the right to feel safe; copies of the campus crime blotter should be available upon request; stiffer penalties should be imposed on those convicted of racist crimes; more campus safety officers should be hired; and more classes discussing racial diversity should be offered.
"We don't necessarily need classes on black literature, for example," Ms. Dexter-Thornton said. "We need to discuss black literature in our regular classes or the history of minorities in our history classes."
Dariah James, a sophomore who is black, said students should realize that Carroll County residents might be more supportive of their desire to end racism than they think.
"Carroll County is a community that is a basic family of everyone," she said, citing research she did for a class assignment. "When something is done to offend one of their family members, they stop it."
For example, several years ago the Ku Klux Klan was distributing literature at the Westminster Post Office, Ms. James said. Community members found that offensive and threatened to take their business elsewhere if the post office did not tell the KKK to leave, she said.
"I thought 'Carroll County did this?' 'Westminster said this?' " Ms. James said. "But they are absolutely supportive of their family members, be they black, white, Chinese, whatever. They did not like it and would stop it, no matter what."
No one has been charged in any of the incidents and the college and the Student Government Association are offering a $500 reward for information.