{"id":354994,"date":"2018-04-03T04:01:56","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T03:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-hofstra-students-keep-the-jefferson-statue\/"},"modified":"2018-04-03T04:01:56","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T03:01:56","slug":"prison-planet-com-hofstra-students-keep-the-jefferson-statue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-hofstra-students-keep-the-jefferson-statue\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison Planet.com \u00bb Hofstra students: \u2018KEEP The Jefferson Statue\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Campus Reform<\/strong><\/a>
March 29, 2018<\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

JaLoni Owens, a Hofstra student and Black Lives Matter activist, released a\u00a0petition<\/a> calling for the statue\u2019s removal on March 17, proclaiming that Jefferson has been embraced as an \u201cicon\u201d by \u201cwhite supremacist and neo-nazi organizations,\u201d like the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cJefferson Has Gotta Go<\/a>!\u201d protest for March 30, demanding the statue\u2019s removal.<\/p>\n

However, many students soon voiced their anger over the potential removal of the statue.<\/p>\n

On March 27, Hofstra student Richard Caldwell released a\u00a0counter-petition<\/a> titled, \u201cKEEP The Jefferson Statue at Hofstra University,\u201d voicing support for keeping the statue on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Thomas Jefferson statue that stands in front of the Hofstra student center has recently become a major point of controversy,\u201d the petition states. \u201cA petition was started and a protest planned to bring it down. However, with all due respect, this would be a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[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,\u201d it adds. \u201cThe Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and put forth the idea that freedom and Democracy should ring loudest.\u201d<\/p>\n