“We are just protesting for racial equality and advocating for the rights of students that go here,” said National Student Activist Party secretary and criminal justice junior Parris Jones.

The protest was peaceful in nature, relations between police and protesters remained calm throughout. 

“We know that since we are protesting we will get shut down eventually so it’s not like we lash out at the police,” Jones said. “It’s not a hateful relationship, we work with one another." 

Police talk with protesters, protest remaining peaceful and protesters are complying with police requests @thesnews pic.twitter.com/xiQEZK1DN2

— The Josh Bender (@JoshBender16) January 23, 2016

Many of the protesters demands centered on further university investment on racial education. Demands include MSU allocating a minimum of $7 million annually to establish departments of Chicano/Latino as well as African and African American Studies.

“This is a very diverse campus and students should be able to learn about different races, and we only have a few classes that can offer them that,” said National Student Activist Party programming director and biochemistry junior Tecoria Strother.

Some protesters argued the proposed changes in the university’s academic offerings would not only benefit minority students. 

“Since this is a predominantly white institution I think that white students should be able to learn about other races,” Strother said.

The protest did not go exactly as organizers planned. 

“Originally we were going to block off traffic but we didn’t have enough people to do that so we resorted to plan B, and are protesting outside of Breslin,” National Student Activist Party president, co-founder and communication senior Ryan Boudreaux said. 

Boudreaux, a former employee at The State News, attributed the lower than anticipated turnout to a variety of factors. 

“We were expecting more people but I think some people didn’t come because of the cold and because we wanted to keep the police out of this, we didn’t publicize this protest on social media," he said. 

Despite the protest’s deliberately low social media profile, the protestors’ choice of location was quite the opposite. 

“The Basketball game will get a lot of attention," Jones said. "If we make our statements known where everybody can see, it may have a bigger impact."