Excerpt: In November 2015, student protesters from the Black Justice League (BJL) occupied the office of University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 during his office hours, commencing a 33-hour sit-in. The students came prepared with a list of demands, which included mandated cultural competency training for faculty and staff, an ethnicity and diversity distribution requirement, and the removal of the name of Woodrow Wilson Class of 1879 from the then-named Wilson School and College.
Following prolonged pro-Palestine activism in the spring, this scene of the BJL sit-in takes on new relevance — not for its impact on the University’s history of racial reckoning, but for how the sit-in permanently altered Eisgruber’s understanding of his own role in responding to student demands.
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