Campus Reform
March 29, 2018
Hofstra University students are fighting back against a coalition of activist groups agitating for the school to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from campus.
JaLoni Owens, a Hofstra student and Black Lives Matter activist, released a petition calling for the statue’s removal on March 17, proclaiming that Jefferson has been embraced as an “icon” by “white supremacist and neo-nazi organizations,” like the Ku Klux Klan.
Shortly thereafter, more than ten Hofstra student organizations, including the Democrats of Hofstra University, Queer and Trans People of Color Coalition, The Gender Identity Federation, and Young Democratic Socialists of Hofstra, jointly planned a “Jefferson Has Gotta Go!” protest for March 30, demanding the statue’s removal.
However, many students soon voiced their anger over the potential removal of the statue.
On March 27, Hofstra student Richard Caldwell released a counter-petition titled, “KEEP The Jefferson Statue at Hofstra University,” voicing support for keeping the statue on campus.
“The Thomas Jefferson statue that stands in front of the Hofstra student center has recently become a major point of controversy,” the petition states. “A petition was started and a protest planned to bring it down. However, with all due respect, this would be a mistake.”
“[F]or thousands of years, tyranny rained supreme as the most widely used form of government. Thomas Jefferson wrote the document that changed all that,” it adds. “The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and put forth the idea that freedom and Democracy should ring loudest.”
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The petition fully acknowledges Jefferson’s participation in slavery, but also recognizes his legislative efforts to “try and stymie slavery, even ending the Transatlantic slave trade.”
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