Black Students Protesting @ U of MD

Black Students Mount Protest at the University of Maryland

In what was one of the largest protests since the Vietnam War, hundreds of students on the campus of the University of Maryland College Park demonstrated against the elimination of the position of associate provost for equity and diversity. The position was eliminated in a budget cutting move. A part-time administrator will now take over the duties of the office.

While blacks are 13 percent of the total enrollments at the College Park campus, student protesters noted that the number of black freshmen has declined in recent years. This year there was a 28 percent decline in black freshman enrollments.

The associate provost for equity and diversity post has been held since 1999 by Cordell Black. Dr. Black will remain at the university as a tenured professor of seventeenth-century French literature