Cornell event draws negative reaction

MOUNT VERNON - Members of a Cornell College organization say a number of discriminatory statements were made about them recently on an anonymous social media application.

The college's Black Awareness Cultural Organization and a handful of other student groups this week sponsored Privilege Week, a series of discussions and panels. Topics included gender, race, religion and education.

BACO members said the purpose of the event was to raise awareness about what privilege is, why it persists and how to combat it.

BACO members said several people used Yik Yak - a social media application that allows users to stay anonymous - to express discomfort with the idea of privilege or lash out at minority groups on campus.

One message read, 'I feel offended for being called out as privileged just because I am a white, straight, well-abled Christian male. Without inequality, where is the incentive to become better?”

BACO members also said that numerous fliers promoting Privilege Week were vandalized.

'Posters were taken down. They've been ripped. In an elevator someone actually slashed it ... Looks like it was slashed with a knife,” BACO President Vashti Blackmon said.

Brenda Mejia, a BACO member, said Privilege Week organizers thought they might get some kind of reaction to the events, but they didn't realize it would be so negative.

'This is a liberal arts school. You would think that people would be a lot more open to these kinds of concepts, but they aren't. At the same time, that's why we're here,” Mejia said.

Blackmon said students were attempting to use the negative incidents as an opportunity.

'I'm glad that we're seeing what people are actually thinking because it allows us to see how some people are really responding to Privilege Week,” Blackmon said. 'It's causing a discussion. People were motivated to come to the week's events because of the negativity on Yik Yak.”

Officials in the college's Office of Intercultural Life began a campaign to put positive images and information out into the community, by posting pictures of people owning up to their privileges on Facebook.

'There seems to be a disconnect about what privilege actually is; that's why we had a campaign to have people name their privilege - to get people to understand it's not only about race, its not only about social class. There are so many other factors,” said Quinneka Lee, Cornell's assistant director of intercultural life.

Other members of Cornell's administration showed their support for Privilege Week as well.

'Cornell College fully supports the efforts of BACO and the other student organizations involved with Privilege Week,” President Jonathan Brand said. 'We're proud of the diverse, global community on campus as well as the spirit of connectedness that permeates it, and we're dedicated to ensuring it continues.”

Forrest Saunders of KCRG-TV9 contributed to this report.