Students rally to keep director of university’s African American studies program

Explore Our Galleries

A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali.
Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on February 4 celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY SEBASTIEN RIEUSSEC / AFP / SÉBASTIEN RIEUSSEC

African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles from Slave Ship Henrietta Marie

Kidnapped: The Middle Passage

Nearly Three Centuries Of Enslavement

Image of the first black members of Congress

Reconstruction: A Brief Glimpse of Freedom

The Lynching of Laura Nelson_May_1911 200x200

One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

I Am Somebody! The Struggle for Justice

NOW: Free At Last?

Memorial to the Victims of Lynching

The Freedom-Lovers’ Roll Call Wall

Frozen custard in Milwaukee's Bronzeville

Special Exhibits

Portraiture of Resistance

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

May 1, 2023

Claretta Bellamy, NBCBLK

Students rally to keep director of university’s African American studies program

Loyola University students protest outside the administration building in New Orleans. Photo Credit – Carson Cruse

At least 100 students at Loyola University in New Orleans last week protested the firing of the director of its African and African American Studies program. The protests came after the university’s decision last fall not to renew the contract of assistant professor R. Scott Heath, a move many students and staff advocating for Heath call unjust.

“This is a clear attack on DEI at Loyola,” Carson Cruse, a sophomore and president of the university’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter, said during the rally, using the abbreviation for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Continue reading about the protests here!

Diversity is crucial in colleges, especially in their student populations.

Keep up on breaking news here!

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.