Hundreds of Howard University Students Hold Protests Over Housing Conditions on Campus

For the second time, hundreds of students from Howard University have protested Wednesday morning over bad housing conditions on campus, claiming that with a high tuition reaching nearly $50,000 per year, it is unacceptable that the university has not managed to handle the situation better.

Students have expressed outrage over the situation, saying that they continue to deal with roaches, molds, and rats while living on campus. The police tried to prevent the protest and remove students from there, Erudera.com reports.

It was reported that a coalition of students from historically Black colleges and universities advocating for education reform, the Live Movement, invited faculty and university officials to a town hall meeting to address their worries and discuss their demands.

Among the students’ demands is an in-person meeting with the university administration at the end of the month, voting power for student representatives on the Board of Trustees, as well as discussion on living conditions plans for students expected to join in the future.

“The well-being of our students is always one of our top concerns and we will also support the right to a peaceful protest the office of student affairs continues to provide support to students who come to us in need,” Howard’s Cynthia Evers, the vice president of student affairs said in a statement, which further pointed out that some students would have to meet with judicial affairs and discuss Student Code of Conduct Violations. 

Students said that they continued to hold peaceful protests even though they were told to leave and threatened by administrators that they will be expelled from the university if they would not agree to leave the building. However, students said that they would not leave the building as long as their requirements are not fulfilled.

HU senior and founder of The Live Movement, Aniyah Vines, told Axios that university officials pulled a false alarm to make students leave.

“People are saying the same things in 2021 as they did in 2018. So that means that nothing is happening. No change is being made,” the student leader said regarding university responding to student demands.

This is the second largest protest held by students of Howard University over the past years, while students continue to complain that they are not a priority for the university. Howard University was established in 1867 and is a private research university made up of 13 schools and colleges.