The students began their most recent round of protests April 24 at a university-sponsored march attended by 4,000 people. The march against "hate" was called because of death threats against Lakeisha Wolf, the president of the Black Caucus, an umbrella organization for Black students.

When administrators tried to begin the march, though, Black Caucus leaders asked the crowd not to proceed because the administration had not addressed the demands of the Black students. Hundreds of supporters went to the Robeson Cultural Center in the Hetzel Union Building (HUB) to get university officials to take steps to ensure the safety of those targeted with death threats. Talks broke off at 10:30 that night, with university officials calling the students' demands unreasonable.

In protest, scores of students occupied the building, with some going on a hunger strike.

Three days earlier, after being denied permission to address the crowd at a football game, 26 members and supporters of the Black Caucus seized the field right before kickoff to make their demands heard. They were arrested and charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass.

Wolf has received four death threats, including one saying the graduation ceremonies would be bombed. Although each threat has been reported to university authorities, students said no action had been taken nor had adequate security been provided for Wolf. In October, three PSU students, parents of athletes, and one member of the PSU Board of Trustees also received threatening letters in the mail.

In addition to seeking security for the students, the Black Caucus raised proposals to strengthen affirmative action and in defense of the African and African American Studies Department. The department is currently autonomous and has four core faculty and 14 affiliate faculty members. The university had planned to consolidate its offices and office staff with Women's Studies and one other department. The students also demanded that the office of Vice Provost for Educational Equity be given the authority to withhold 2 percent of the budget of schools or departments that fail to make progress in meeting already-agreed-to diversity goals.

Of the 40,571 students on campus less than 4 percent are African American. Of 2,791 faculty members, only 2.7 percent are African American.

The occupation of the HUB was spirited. When students learned of the New York police department's decision to clear the cops who killed Amadou Diallo of any departmental charges, they organized an impromptu rally of several hundred to denounce the ruling and demand justice for Diallo. In response to the resumption of the bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques by the U.S. Navy as part of its war exercises, supporters of the struggle to get the Navy out put up signs in the HUB calling for an end to the bombing.

Alumni, parents, religious figures, and members of the NAACP joined the students in the HUB during the protest action. The majority of the people in the building were not Black students, but students who wanted to be part of fighting against racism. Lisa Raposa, a sophomore, said, "I am here to support the efforts of the Black Caucus and to offer all my help in the fight against the racial climate at our university."

After several rounds of negotiations, the administration released a document May 2 agreeing to most of the demands of the students, including the creation of an Africana Studies Research Center and increasing tenure-track faculty in the African and African American Studies Department from six to 10 over three years.

While the students did not win the demand for withholding funds from departments that had not met diversity goals, the administration did agree that the Vice Provost for Educational Equity will have the authority along with the provost to approve the annual budgets for the colleges and that "certified progress on the diversity plans of each college will influence this budget review and approval process."

Lastly, officials agreed the Vice Provost for Educational Equity "will be responsible for ensuring that investigations of bias-motivated incidents and hate crimes are initiated and followed up on," according to the university document.
 
 
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