Roberts: UA students demand free condoms and tampons ... or else
Minority students at the University of Arizona feel marginalized. So marginalized, in fact, that they’ve issued 19 pages of demands “necessary to affirm the expectation of safety and real life equity.”
Nineteen.
Among their demands: free condoms, free tampons, free menstrual pads, free testing for sexually transmitted diseases and, of course, free funding for their student organizations.
And if they don’t get what they want? They’re threatening to go all University of Missouri on us.
The group – the Marginalized Students of University of Arizona -- says UA has serious issues “including a lack of campus wide cultural competency, explicit and implicit racism, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, ableism, sexism and rape culture that run rampant throughout our campus.”
MSUA doesn’t believe that university officials are taking its complaints seriously, noting that UA President Ann Weaver Hart recently met with various student groups but only gave each one 30 minutes to speak “about the tremendous amount of discrimination our students face and the consequences those interactions have on our college experience.”
The group’s “general list of demands” includes mandatory “cultural competency training” for all students and faculty, more scholarships for marginalized students and a childcare center. The students want 15 percent of faculty and staff to be people of color by 2020. They want $500,000 for diversity initiatives and unisex bathrooms in all campus buildings by 2020.
They want free tutors, more affordable healthy food options and more lactation rooms. They want more mental health counseling and a "safe space" in every classroom. And they want $35,000 for each of their student groups.
Additionally, each group within MSUA has its own demands.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2016/03/14/roberts-ua-students-demand-free-condoms-and-tampons-else/81780130/