Do segregated graduations hurt their intended audiences? One student says they do.
Sam Houston State University was scheduled to host a 'Hispanic/Latinx Senior Ceremony' earlier this month.
'As Mexican-American students, we did not fight for so much progress in this country just to be segregated again,' one student told Campus Reform.
Students at Sam Houston State University were invited to attend segregated graduation ceremonies this year, including ceremonies for Latino, Hispanic, and Black students.
The Center for Diversity and Intercultural Affairs (CDIA) at SHSU hosted a “Hispanic/Latinx Senior Ceremony” on Dec. 6, according to the university website. Flyers advertising the ceremony were displayed around campus, including in student residence halls.
Mexican American student Johnny Uribe, a Mexican American student at the university, told Campus Reform that such graduations are a huge setback to the progress our country has made.
“As Mexican American students, we did not fight for so much progress in this country just to be segregated again,” said Uribe, who is also president of the school’s Young Conservatives of Texas chapter. “We are going back to the times of Plessy v. Ferguson.”
[RELATED: Chapman University hosts racially segregated ‘cultural graduation celebrations’]
“Martin Luther King Jr. and Hispanic leaders, such as Emiliano Zapata, are probably all tossing and turning in their graves. All they fought for was for nothing,” he said.
Similarly, a “Black Excellence Ceremony” was scheduled to be held on Dec. 9.
“They call it segregation in the name of civil rights, which honestly, is not civil rights. Separate but equal is not the answer,” said Uribe.
Campus Reform reached out to the CDIA and SHSU for a comment; this article will be updated accordingly.
Follow @addison_pummill on Twitter.
