`Westminster students call for boycott on King holiday`

By Jennifer Hall
Herald Staff Writer

Two Westminister College students say that for three years they have asked the administration to reconsider starting the spring semester on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

And for three years, the New Wilmington college has continued to hold the first day of class on the federal holiday.

This year, Jason Hunter and Keilon Ratliff are encouraging students to boycott the first day of classes Jan. 18 and instead honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“We approached the administration as freshmen and every year after that,” said Ratliff, a member of the college’s Black Student Union. “And they kept giving us the cold shoulder.”

Before leaving for winter break, the 21-year-old from Youngstown said he and Hunter gathered about 1,400 signatures from students asking that classes not be held Jan. 18.

“The response from the administration has basically been: ‘Who cares?’ ” said Hunter, president of the Black Student Union. “They tell us that it’s just the way the system is.”

The school also starts classes on a federal holiday in the fall — Labor Day. The administration plans to study the class calendar for 2000 and address the students’ concerns, said Mark Meighen, the college’s communications director.

About 25 of the college’s 1,500 students are African American. The Rev. Philip King, director of Multi-Cultural Affairs, said he would like to see the students and administration work together for a reasonable agreement.

“I don’t think a boycott is necessary but rather a table of communication,” he said. Hunter, a 21-year-old senior from Buffalo, N.Y., said many students have the desire and the drive to celebrate that day and feel that having classes isn’t right.

“It’s not being celebrated the way it needs to be,” the business major said. “I would like to see students not in classes and teachers not having to work, with more events and speakers on campus.”

Hunter said that would show respect to the slain civil rights leader. “I think having classes is a slap in the face,” he said.

Ratliff wondered how, if the college wants to recruit more African-American students, it could not honor the holiday with a day away from class.

“We are not looking at this as a day off class,” the senior in psychology said. “We want to celebrate.”

Meighen said students would not have to boycott classes to attend the planned events.

The events include a prayer for world peace at 3:25 p.m. at the Peace Pole in front of Orr Auditorium. The group will then process to Wallace Memorial Chapel where the Rev. Ralph Newell, pastor of Greater Morris Chapel, Farrell, will conduct a special observance for the day.

“The college believes that honoring Martin Luther King with a special ceremony allows more students to participate than simply canceling classes,” Meighen said.

Some professors told students they would remove them from the roster if they did not attend class Jan. 18, Meighen, Hunter and Ratliff said.

They all emphasized that school policy does not permit that.

Mr. King, a minister from Farrell, said the college also holds classes on the birthdays of presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

“As a black man, alum and former student protester at this school, I see this as a great opportunity to teach rather than to protest,” he said.

Mr. King plans the college’s events for the holiday and other cultural programs. He noted that in the past, mainly white students attended the events.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an opportunity to nurture and educate students on “what it really meant to lift up a voice and speak out about the unspeakable horrors,” he said.

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Updated January 8, 1999
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