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Mizzou Students Encourage Peers to Arm Themselves to Protect Black Students' 'Safe Place

Campus

"Spread the word so blacks can be protected."

 Kaitlyn Schallhorn
November 11, 2015
A member of the black student protest group Concerned Student 1950 gestures while addressing a crowd following the announcement that University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe would resign Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, at the university in Columbia, Mo. Wolfe resigned Monday with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over his handling of racial tensions at the school. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

University of Missouri students are reportedly encouraging one another to start arming themselves with "non-lethal weapons" in order to protect their "safe places" on campus.

According to a message obtained by the Young America's Foundation that is being circulated among Mizzou students, black students and their "closest allies" plan to "occupy" the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center to hold a study hall in what has been deemed their "safe place."

"Have pepper spray, taser, whatever non lethal weapon if possible," the message, which students are encouraged to pass along through non-public platforms, states. "Help protect our safe place and spread the word so blacks can be protected."

Screen grab courtesy of the Young America's Foundation

"What this is doing is creating a bunch of hysteria on campus," a black Mizzou student in a campus leadership position, who wished to remain anonymous, told TheBlaze Wednesday afternoon. "Students are already scared and antsy on campus."

Students and supporters on social media have also called for black students to arm themselves while on campus.

The campus has been embroiled in racial tensions of late after a group of faculty and students — including black members of the school's football team — demanded the resignation of the university's president over the way he handled racial issues on campus. President Tim Wolfe resigned Monday.

A Mizzou journalism professor recently came under fire — and subsequently apologized — after a video of her attempting to bully a student reporter out of one of the so-called "safe spaces" on the public university's campus went viral.

Mizzou's student body president Payton Head also had to apologize after he published a Facebook status that claimed he was working with campus police, state troopers and the National Guard as the Ku Klux Klan had been spotted on campus. Head eventually deleted the status and posted a new one in which he apologized for spreading the "misinformation" he had received from "multiple incorrect sources."

On Wednesday, police said they arrested a 19-year-old white teenager who is suspected of posting online threats to black students and faculty members on social media. The student, who goes to a sister campus, has not been formally charged.

(H/T: Young America's Foundation)

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