California State University officials are receiving mixed reactions after taking steps to accommodate requests for Black student housing.
Earlier this week, the university opened their new Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community, which was established specifically to accommodate expressed needs for African-American students who felt like they needed a living space where they could be among other Black students with similar concerns and interests.
Students also expressed wanting to have a place to seek refuge from insensitive remarks and actions from their white classmates in the wake of growing social issues faced by Black communities.
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School officials worked to create the housing alternative in response to demands issued by the university’s Black Student Union organization nine months ago, which suggested that the living space would serve as a cheaper housing alternative for Black students and provide for a “safe space for Black students to congregate, connect and learn from each other” according to The College Fix.
While some feel the establishment of the Black student housing is a move in the right direction, in accordance with ensuring that African-American students feel their needs are important, some feel segregated student housing is slap in the face to the progress made by those who worked hard to end racial divide in America.
“If they wanted to go to an all-black institution, there are plenty of historically black colleges that still exist,” Congress of Racial Equality spokesperson Niger Innis told Fox News.
“But if they want to go to an institution that is racially diverse and integrated, then racial diversity and integration is part of it. To have a university-sanctioned segregation or separation is, to me, a bit troubling.”