Two plain clothes officers also were dispatched by Chief Carey to meet Khallid Abdul Muhammad's plane at the Roanoke Regional Airport and take pictures of him and his entourage. The presence of police at the speech, during which Muhammad recounted the photo session in the air terminal, irritated many black students who attended. Last November, Delta Kappa Epsilon, a predominantly white fraternity, was banished form campus for five years for instructing its pledges to have their pictures taken kissing black women. Virgnia Tech Office of Admissions. The incident at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, mobilized Tech's black student community, whose leaders demanded that officials bolster black studies and multi-cultural offerings at the university, among other things.
Officials hope to hire a black studies coordinator before the end of the year.
Black students and some university officials, most of whom are aware of the recent incidents, worry that efforts to make the campus community more sensitive to minority concerns are hampered by what some perceive to be heavy-handed police behavior and pockets of racism in the community. Incident after incident is going to lead to further polarization of racial relations hare. It's typical Southern police thinking. You'd think you were in Alabama or Mississippi in the olden days. We're not here to harass students, to pick on people.