Taking a deliberately slow look at the faces gathered for the Board of Trustees meeting Friday, Bryan Newland said, "It's good to see some color in this room.
"A lot of us are weary, we're hungry... we aren't allowed to sit in those cushy green chairs," said Newland, co-chairman of the North American Indian Student Organization. "That's a testament to how determined we are."
More than 200 students, representing more than a dozen campus groups, overflowed the fourth-floor board room of the Administration Building for the board's last meeting of the semester.
Students said it was a unified effort to grab the attention of university officials on such issues as affirmative action, minority retention rates, domestic partner benefits, gender identity policies, corporate divestment and the construction of a freestanding multicultural center.
Outside, multicolored signs such as "My partner and I want to 'Live On'" declared support of a two-hour rally before the meeting.
draped between two poles in front of the building
The university needs to work harder to retain minority students, political economy senior Louis Brown told the board.
"We like what MSU is doing, but it needs to do more," the ASMSU Student Assembly vice chairperson said. "More African-American students come here and leave than stay.
"You're not supporting us enough - it's a two-way street."
A report on the effectiveness of MSU's affirmative action program presented at the meeting cited minority enrollment numbers as increasing, but didn't account for student retention rates.
While a majority of students who attended the demonstration vocally supported affirmative action, about 10 members of the Young Americans for Freedom rallied for its demise.
"Affirmative action gives preference to a group and gives a group more rights and that's not right," biosystems engineering senior Aaron Kaeb said. "Affirmative should mean nobody gets any more preference than anybody else."
Students also petitioned trustees to include gender identify in the university's anti-discrimination policy. Academic Council is addressing the policy and considering revisions.
Trustee Dee Cook characterized the current wording of the proposed policy change as "ambiguous" and said she did not know whether she would support it.
Several students addressed the board about the lack of university benefits for same-sex student domestic couples.
Family community services senior Kendra Kearney told trustees the benefits were non-partisan.
"It's not a Republican issue. It's not a Democrat issue," she said. "It's a human rights issue. Listen to our constituents. This has to pass."
Trustee Dorothy Gonzales said she supports benefits for same-sex domestic student partners and will vote to include gender identity in MSU's anti-discrimination policy because she "cannot condone anyone being treated differently."
But Gonzales said action might take longer than students would like to wait.
"The road to equality is never easy," she said.
