Image via Ryann Phillips

By: Ryann Phillips, Staff Writer

Students across the Atlanta University Center hosted another speak-out Saturday afternoon to advocate for student’s rights, as 300 Spelman students were recently denied housing for Fall 2024. The college has had a recent history of protests following the announcement of housing decisions due to limited Spelman-sponsored housing options. 

The grassroots AUC organization, The Student Intercommunal Coordinating Committee (SICC), led the protest and urged students to share their experiences surrounding the lack of housing, financial aid concerns, failure to address sexual violence cases, and the suppression of student voices. 

In tandem with family weekend, around 25 to 30 students and parents who supported this cause gathered on Spelman’s oval. Social justice organizations within the AUC such as  Spelman’s Social Justice Fellows, NAACP, and more also contributed. 

“We want to make activism approachable, and so maybe that [does not] look like you speaking out for what we are speaking out exactly, but it means you [have] a platform to use your voice,” Marq Riggins, a senior sociology major at Morehouse College said. 

One concern for students attending the protest was the suppression of the student’s voices. SICC composed a statement indicating the different ways these institutions in the AUC have restrained student expression, by referring to Spelman’s peaceful assembly policy in the student handbook. 

The policy states that students have the right to peacefully assemble, but must not interrupt the daily operations of Spelman, academic classes, or residential life. The Maroon Tiger talked to students at the protest about how this policy has affected their campus experience. 

“The Spelman Protest Policy, the peaceful assembly…has consistently been used to suppress student activist voices…I have watched students and peers get threatened with expulsion for putting up flyers that are not approved by whatever the school’s message wants to be conveyed. Essentially, I think that that protest policy is being used to protect the school from addressing the crucial issues that students feel need to be addressed,” Ava Noelle Johnson, a member of SICC said. 

Many students have shared personal stories about being affected by recent housing decisions. In a press release that Spelman shared on February 18, the college said that 1,236 students applied for 890 available beds, leaving many students without Spelman-sponsored housing for next semester. Some of these students were promised multi-year accommodations such as a private room and air-conditioned housing due to medical conditions when they initially entered Spelman College. 

Image via Justin Darden (Picture was captured at Spelman housing protest during the Spring semester of 2021-2022 school year on March 24th)

Image via Justin Darden (Picture was captured at Spelman housing protest during the Spring semester of 2021-2022 school year on March 24)

The Maroon Tiger talked to sophomore, Shyla Anderson, about her experience talking to the deans after not receiving housing.   

“Their responses were very analytical…I questioned whether or not they considered the increasing popularity of HBCUs…yet I was given the responses that they [had not] looked at those trends and those are new trends,” Anderson said. 

Anderson has yet to receive Spelman-sponsored housing. 

The Maroon Tiger also talked to students about how they would like Spelman to approach housing in the future. 

Next semester, Abby Hall and Morehouse James Hall, two residences at Spelman, will be undergoing reconstruction. Spelman has partnered with The Mix Apartments in downtown Atlanta and the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) to provide additional student housing. 

“I feel like there are so many more partnership options that they could be doing with the wider West End community. I know other schools have partnered with hotels to give students even just a temporary option until housing becomes available,” Zariah Taylor, a sophomore at Spelman said. 

“[It is] just very, for lack of better words, kind of evil that our president lives in a full mansion…for herself and her husband, and yet students [can not] get that,” Taylor said. 

There have been no further updates to Spelman’s housing policies or peaceful assembly policies. The Maroon Tiger will continue to keep you updated on these issues. 

Copy Edited by: Justin Darden, News & Politics Editor