At the U. of Maryland at College Park, administrators are taking heat from students who criticized the deputy general counsel’s comment that the university is “not a home.”
Updated (11/6/2017, 2:30 p.m.) with an additional statement from the university and a correction of Diane Krejsa’s job title.
A University of Maryland at College Park administrator said last month the campus is not a home, a statement that students and others online said was dismissive of their safety and inclusivity concerns.
It was in a University Senate meeting concerning a ban on “hate symbols” when Diane Krejsa, chief of staff in the general counsel’s office, made the remark that has incensed the student activists, reports the student newspaper The Diamondback.
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At the U. of Maryland at College Park, administrators are taking heat from students who criticized the deputy general counsel’s comment that the university is “not a home.”
Updated (11/6/2017, 2:30 p.m.) with an additional statement from the university and a correction of Diane Krejsa’s job title.
A University of Maryland at College Park administrator said last month the campus is not a home, a statement that students and others online said was dismissive of their safety and inclusivity concerns.
It was in a University Senate meeting concerning a ban on “hate symbols” when Diane Krejsa, chief of staff in the general counsel’s office, made the remark that has incensed the student activists, reports the student newspaper The Diamondback.
“This is not a home,” she said. “If people are paying money to come to college because they want a home — where people all think alike and everybody has the same political views, and the same social views and the same views on sexual orientation and transgender and whatever religion or whatever it is — they should stay at home.”
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This year fliers tied to white nationalism were spotted on the campus. And in May a black student from Bowie State University, Richard Collins III, was stabbed near the College Park campus by a white student, Sean Urbanski. Mr. Urbanski has been charged with a hate crime along with murder.
The Diamondback later reported that students were quick to point out many of them live on the campus, which would make it a home for them. Others said the university had welcomed students “home” as they moved back to the campus or when referring to Homecoming events on social media. In many cases, they used the hashtag “#UMDnotahome.”
In a statement to The Chronicle, a university spokeswoman said Ms. Krejsa’s comments at the meeting were meant specifically to draw the legal distinction between a public university’s residence hall and a private home.
Joel Seligman, a spokesman for the university, said in a statement that Ms. Krejsa’s remark had been “quoted entirely out of context and in a manner that misrepresents the meaning.”
“UMD has seen an example of one of our longtime colleagues unfairly criticized for her efforts to provide legal advice to the University Senate Campus Affairs Committee literally at the same time she is working to advance the cause of inclusion,” the statement reads.
Chris Quintana was a breaking-news reporter for The Chronicle. He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.
