Black Students United, Ujamaa and Students for Ken Glover marched in the homecoming parade on Saturday in support of Ujamaa residential housing director Ken Glover.

The University’s treatment of Glover has been a point of contention in the community since June, when Glover was reassigned to another position; many members of the Cornell community saw this as an abrupt decision. At that time, the University responded to community protest by reinstating Glover in Ujamaa for one year, but the community has continued to push the administration to embrace a more transparent policy concerning student life as well as to permanently reinstate Glover.

Participants in the parade wore black clothes and red armbands to symbolize the death of student voice and inclusiveness. Members also “mourned” the potential loss of Ujamaa along with the rest of the program houses that are currently under review by University administrators.

“There hasn’t been any consideration from the administration for how important Ken Glover is for the community. The march is to raise awareness of what is going on,” said Maria Oldiges ’09, who marched in the parade.A call for rights: Students march for minority rights in the homecoming parade on Saturday.

According to Zach Murray ’11, students and alumni have been speaking throughout the semester with Joseph Burke, director of residential programs, and Susan Murphy ’73, vice president for student and academic services. The group has noticed that the administration’s rhetoric has shifted over time — in the summer, Glover was an exemplary staff person and the administration wanted to reassign him because his talent is needed elsewhere. Murray said that now the administration seems more focused on building a case against Glover — they claim that it is a “personnel decision,” and Susan Murphy has mentioned the “ability to fire.”

“Now we’ve been reaching out to make people aware of the issue and why this is important, because in the big scheme of things we feel that the reassignment of Mr. Glover is symbolic of a whole bunch of different issues,” Tia Hicks ’11 said. “We feel like this is the most blatant act the administration has done to undermine diversification.”

Nicholas Calder ’10, president of the Black Biomedical and Technical Association, brought up the fact that in 1969, students took over the Willard Straight Hall as an attempt to gain student input on administrative decisions. Calder said that the administration is presently denying the right that was fought for by those students, as administrators refuse to see and hear what students want when making decisions that affect their daily lives.

“It’s a problem when the administration makes decisions that affect student life without student input,” Calder said. “What happened to the open doors, open minds, open hearts thing? To me it’s like closed doors, closed minds, closed hearts — especially closed eyes and ears.”

Members of Students for Ken Glover will be meeting with President Skorton on Wednesday. Hicks said that they want to put their issues on the table to make it clear that they are not going to change their stance on reinstating Glover and that they want input in the decision-making process. Also, members hope for a greater commitment to diversity, they want not just numbers and quotes but real support and tangible resources.

According to Murray, the University has not been doing well for many years on the issue of diversity. Last year, 4 percent of students identified as black. This year, the number is up to 6 percent, but the group would like to be assured that this progress is sustainable. Murray added that he finds it unacceptable that Skorton has been silent on the issue thus far — when the group sends statements to Skorton, they usually only get replies that acknowledge the receipt of the statements, which makes it seem as if he is not treating the issue seriously.

“There’s a lot of burden on us as students of color who are involved in this issue. We have the pressures of Cornell that everybody feels — the weather, the schoolwork, the late nights studying in Uris — but we have to do that as well as organizing ourselves to get the resources that we need,” Hicks said.