‘We won’t allow him to be targeted.’ Faculty back student activist as UK takes action
Updated: The University of Kentucky’s conduct hearing with senior and activist Khari Gardner on the UK’s signage policy was “productive and a new start on discussions” with the university, Gardner wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
He received an informal warning from the university — which will not stick to his record.
The Movement for Black Lives UK student group, which Gardner started, “will still continue to push forward lasting and effective initiatives and changes to every aspect of campus and our community,” he wrote online. “I want the next person to step foot on campus” to have a better “experience than my last 4 years.”
When Gardner revealed Saturday that the University of Kentucky was potentially punishing him, he found the response “really eye-opening.”
UK initiated a student code of conduct investigation against Gardner after he, a leader of the Movement for Black Lives UK, and other students posted large banners nearly two weeks ago describing racist incidents encountered by students of color on campus. The university says that Gardner broke the school’s signage policy.
Students, faculty and staff offered help, support, legal aid and shared outrage. By Sunday, Gardner’s original tweet on UK taking action against him garnered hundreds of re-tweets and likes. Many were critical of the university’s response, including faculty who say the university’s treatment of Gardner and the Movement for Black Lives is antithetical to the university’s goal to address campus racial disparities.
“When I first stepped on this campus, I really felt like I didn’t belong here, and I never really thought that I would find my place in this community,” Gardner said. “And to see the outpouring of support from everybody — from students, from faculty, from staff, people across Kentucky, across the country. It really feels like I belong and that my voice is no longer alone.”
According to an Office of Student Conduct document provided by Gardner, the university alleged that he broke a university sign policy by hanging the banners without prior approval. The banners — that were swiftly removed — were hung on multiple buildings around campus, including the president’s house, on the Gatton Student Center and off a parking garage facing South Limestone. Gardner has a hearing on the matter on Wednesday, he said.
“I walked from Canes to my dorm,” one banner read. “I was followed and called a n-----. I was terrified as everybody stood on the street and did nothing.”
“I was called a n----- multiple times by people in my fraternity,” another banner stated. “Whenever I brought it up I was laughed at and called a ‘half-blood.’”
UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said he couldn’t comment on a specific case, but the sign policy “basically says you need permission from the folks operating the building or structure in question before placing a sign.”
Blanton said in a statement that violating the policy isn’t “something I would characterize as a major infraction” and that a student facing it would get more “education and awareness around the importance of the policy” rather than receiving discipline like suspension or expulsion.
Gardner said he took the code of conduct infraction as a “warning shot” from the administration and as retaliation — not just for the banners — but for months of pushing the university on racial inequality issues.
Since early June, Gardner and the Movement for Black Lives student group have demanded that UK roll back the campus police force’s size and scope and rename spaces on campus after people of color. The organization also backed a Black faculty group’s list of demands to hire more Black employees and increase research into Black studies.
At times, the student group has met opposition from the administration, including an allegedly hostile meeting with administrators in July and a tense and public back-and-forth between the university’s main Twitter page and the student group over the university’s reopening plans in early August.
Gardner said he found the code of conduct proceedings upsetting because of the timing — almost two weeks after the alleged policy violation. In that period, he was never told he was in trouble, even during a meeting with administrators in mid-August. At that meeting, Eric Monday, the executive vice president for finance and administration, apologized to Gardner for Monday’s tone in a prior meeting.
UK police officers who talked to Gardner after the banners were hung never told him he might have been in trouble, he said. They asked where the banners were so they could be removed.
Blanton said the university’s only issue with the banners was the sign policy violation. While he said he couldn’t discuss individual cases, he said there’s precedent in enforcing the policy.
“We have had a large number of reports over the last three years regarding the stealing or unapproved possession of signs, students in interpersonal conflict making signs, vandalism to signs, or signage not under the jurisdiction of the signage policy,” Blanton said. “The signs in question, when the policy is violated, are taken down.”
Blanton reiterated a university statement from the day the banners were hung that said that UK recognized that the university needs to act when members of the community are marginalized by discriminatory acts like those described in the banners.
“It’s our responsibility to protect and support our community,” Blanton said. “We can’t be a community when people are victimized. As such, beginning this summer, we announced dedicated efforts to spur cultural change and combat racism, efforts designed to take bold and decisive actions. Some of that change will take months and years. But the urgency of our work will be seen this fall semester. Our collective work is to move forward together and now.”
The university has made some promised moves to support Black students and faculty, including funding a Black studies institute. UK announced Monday that more Black administrators would report to the president.
But for some, the university’s treatment of Gardner and the student group runs counter to the narrative the university presents in emails and press releases.
“I’m not sure how they can send all these emails, create all these workstreams and new research things and still target (Gardner) at the same time,” said Regina Hamilton, an assistant professor of English and African-American and Africana studies. “He is part of this move on our campus toward greater diversity, to a more egalitarian and open community. He is part of dragging us in the right direction. So how can you say this is the right direction but also tell this student that he’s up on conduct charges? I’m not sure how one does both.”
Hamilton was shocked and angered that Gardner was possibly being punished for the signs, and she posted widely shared tweets. Hamilton said she sees an administration that is at odds with Gardner, “even though he doesn’t seem to be at odds with many of the community members that support him.”
The wide community support that the Movement for Black Lives student group gets “shows what the truth is,” Hamilton said.
“(Gardner) has perhaps exposed the truth about the university to people who were willing and able to ignore it, “ Hamilton said. The rallying of support to Gardner “shows that there are many people within our university community that stand behind the truth and stand behind him as he tells it. We won’t allow him to be targeted for telling the truth.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 8:54 AM.