The UNR student helping lead a Black Lives Matter peace protest in Reno this weekend says the campus needs to take racial concerns more seriously.
Elen Valdez said the university should treat racist acts with the same zero tolerance policy that applies to sexual harassment.
“I feel like our campus tries, but probably doesn’t take the best approach,” said Valdez, a senior studying communications. “For the most part when an incident happens we’ll get like an email or a dialogue, but we don’t see any repercussions.
“It just feels like a Band-Aid over the wound.”
Valdez is assisting in organizing a rally set for Sunday at UNR’s Crowley Student Union and ensuing march through downtown Reno.
The protest is in response to this month’s white supremacist Unite the Right gathering in Charlottesville, Va., that led to the death of a counterprotester.
A photo that went viral from the white nationalists’ torchlight march was later identified to be of a UNR student. The university president later said there were no grounds to discipline the young man.
In announcing the rally, the Reno chapter of Black Lives Matter, which is independent of the national organization, said, “The biggest little city is a progressive one that is marching toward the future and not moving backwards.”
From NPR: University of Nevada-Reno Won't Dismiss Student In Viral Charlottesville Rally Photo
Elen Valdez, UNR student and protest organizer