Black Students Stage Protest at Penn State
More than 150 Penn State University students, most of them black, staged a sit-in Friday when a planned meeting to discuss minority issues with the university president, administrators and faculty fell through.
Students marched from the proposed meeting site at the Paul Robeson Cultural Center when Bryce Jordan, the school’s president, sent only two senior administrators.
They walked in silence several hundred yards to the Telecommunications Building, where they sat on the carpeted first and second floors, chanting “We want Bryce!”
“Until all of us are satisfied with what they say, we’re here,” said Robert Blair, director of political services for the Black Caucus, a student organization. He said 167 students were involved in the sit-in.
Jordan agreed Tuesday to convene the university officials to end a sit-in outside his office by nine black students and a local minister.
Demonstrators scuffled Friday with security guards as they locked the doors to the two-story brick building. Students remained free to leave but unable to enter the building. They talked inside with each other and sang quietly, while university administrators tried to negotiate with them.
“We can’t get anywhere if we don’t start talking,” said one administrator, Carol A. Cartwright, chairman of the Equal Opportunity Planning Committee.
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