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Lafayette College students are protesting over a poster that was intended to attack racial stereotypes. Some students say the poster offends blacks, instead.
The two students who made the poster and their professor are defending the work. Professor Curlee Raven Holton, who is black, says he arranged the project to have his students speak out.
The poster pictured a mock financial aid form for black students, and the various lines on the form were written to reflect predjudices whites may have against blacks. As part of the class assignment, the students hung some of the posters around Lafayette’s campus.
About 200 students demonstrated against the posters last night, saying they contribute to racial stereotyping, instead of fighting it. They also criticized the Lafayette College administration, for not acting against the posters sooner.
Twenty copies of the poster were put up Monday and taken down within hours by students and administrators. But the administration did not address the issue until Tuesday night. That’s when Provost June Schlueter sent a campuswide e-mail saying the college does not condone discrimination and would investigate the incident.
About 3.7 percent of the campus population at Lafayette is from minority groups.