Emory University president says students are scared and 'in pain' after someone wrote 'Trump 2016' in chalk on campus
- President Jim Wagner said students viewed graffiti as intimidating
- Officials arranged a meeting for those offended to address concerns
- University organizations also offered counselling to those affected
- But some commentators have told the students to grow up
- Republican frontrunner won the Georgia primary earlier this month
The president of Emory University has spoken to demonstrators who said they were frightened after someone wrote 'Trump 2016' in chalk around campus.
Students at the Atlanta school, which has an enrollment of more than 14,000 claim their 'safe space' was violated when the messages appeared on sidewalks and buildings.
Jim Wagner, president of the Atlanta university, wrote Tuesday that the students viewed the messages as intimidation, and they voiced 'genuine concern and pain' as a result.
He acted after student government wrote to him and slammed the university's response, prompting a meeting that led to protests.
Now administrators want to track down those responsible for the controversial markings.
But some commentators on the university's student newspaper website told the students to grow up and accused them of being babies.
The president of Emory University has spoken to demonstrators who said they were frightened after someone wrote 'Trump 2016' in chalk around campus
Students at the Atlanta school, which has an enrollment of more than 14,000 claim their 'safe space' was violated when the messages appeared on sidewalks and buildings
University organizations offered students counselling after the markings were spotted on parts of campus
As a result student organizations offered counselling to anyone who may have been impacted by what they had seen.
Emory on Wednesday provided The Associated Press with a copy of Wagner's letter, in which he said students confronted by Trump's name in chalk 'heard a message about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory's own.'
Emory's student newspaper, The Wheel, said Wagner outlined four steps that administrators plan to take in order to address the issues raised by the protesters who said they were in pain in a campus-wide email.
He proposed 'immediate refinements to certain policies and procedural deficiencies; regular and structured opportunities for difficult dialogues; a formal process to institutionalize identification, review and addressing of social justice opportunities and issues; and commitment to an annual retreat to renew [their] efforts.'
Wagner added that the Freedom of Expression Committee is meeting to address whether the person or people responsible for the chalking were in compliance with Emory’s policy.
He said that they would debate technical issues, such as whether or not the chalkings were done on an appropriate surface.
However, he believes that the broader concern motivating the protests had to do more with the ideas the chalkings stood for than how they were done.
The Wheel also reported that the students this week chanted, 'You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!' shortly before Wagner agreed to meet with them.
Their editor, Zak Hudak, posted an editorial addressing what had happened.
He wrote: I do not take lightly the fears and pains of those students who felt victimized by the 'Trump 2016' chalkings around campus, and I try my best to support oppressed groups on campus.
Emory University students protested after someone wrote Trump 2016 on campus. Dozens claim the message of support for Trump were causing pain
'The duty of a newspaper to give a voice to the voiceless surpasses that of echoing those in power. I acknowledge again that Donald Trump is unlike any recent candidate who has lasted to this stage of a presidential election and that, for many Emory students, support of him holds a different connotation than support for Hillary Clinton or John Kasich.
'It is nonetheless necessary to ask those protesters what would happen should the tables be turned. Suppose we had a different administration.
'Suppose it was ruled that protests, such as the one on Tuesday, made Trump supporters feel threatened on campus. Freedom of speech works both ways, and its hindrance affects both sides.
'It is not the role of an institution that is devoted to the critical education of its students to tell those students which opinions they are allowed to have.'
It drew a handful of scathing comments, including one which read: 'While this response is inadequate in countering the anti-democratic impulses of the students frightened by chalk, it is at least better than limp, coddling responses from administrators, who are letting students with the maturity of 10-year-olds drive the conversation and campus policy.
'Mr. Hudak--in this context, you shouldn't even engage in the question of whether Trump is 'an offensive man.'
Administrators at Emory (pictured) have insisted they will try and track down whoever is responsible for the markings and meet with them
'The crybaby students forfeited any expectation of an open discussion with their demands that any talk or chalk of Trump should be banished from their fantasyland.'
Another read: 'I have no idea how you kids will survive once you get out into the real world. People have different opinions than you. You need to grow up, and fast.'
One person also wrote: 'Within a year I am ashamed of both my undergraduate college (Yale) and my graduate university (Emory Law, '77).
'I am a liberal supporter of Clinton and Sanders (the former by a shade) and I want to shout at the thin-skinned crybabies on these campuses who are so obsessed with 'safe spaces' and so dismissive of free speech values: 'GROW THE F*** UP !''
On Wednesday, the scrawlings were swapped with messages of anti-hate.
Trump won the Georgia Republican primary earlier this month.
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