Following Sunday's assault, discussion draws crowd

The Asian Cultural Center sponsored a meeting Wednesday for student leaders, staff and faculty to discuss the recent assault and robbery of several Asian students on campus.

The meeting took place in the Collins Living-Learning Center formal lounge. Dean of Students Pete Goldsmith, Co-Chair of the Racial Incident Team Pam Freeman, Chief of Police Keith Cash and other students and faculty attended the meeting.

After being endorsed by Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson and other administration members in an e-mail to the student body earlier that evening, the meeting was packed with people.

Many students were forced to stand in the back or sit on the floor during the talks.

“This is a lot bigger than I expected,” said Stefan Khensouri, sophomore and co-coordinator of the event. “I didn’t picture this place to be so packed. The floor is just flooded with people.”

Even with the room full, individual students were able to speak their minds.

Juan Berumen, a graduate assistant at La Casa Latino Cultural Center, sat on a panel of students from different ethnic groups around campus.

Berumen spoke about making sure the assault incident doesn’t turn into a widespread issue.

“How do we keep this from turning into a racial situation?” he asked the students on the floor. “We need to stop this from becoming one community against another.”

However, not all in attendance thought this was an issue of race, but rather an isolated event that involved aggressive people.

“I don’t really know if this is racially motivated or not,” senior Alex Wu said.

Cash said one of the suspects in custody indicated the group of assailants, all of whom were African American, were considering robbing a group of fellow African Americans before they decided to attack the group of Asian students.

Racially charged comments attributed to the severity of the situation, Cash said.

Cash continued to explain that the FBI and the Department of Justice were both informed about the situation and are involved in the investigation because of the racial slurs directed at the victims.

Cash said there is a search warrant that is going to be executed in Jeffersonville Ind, that is affiliated with this attack.

Many of the other speakers at the meeting were concerned with the self-segregation that many of the students on the IUB campus participate in.

Eric Love, director of the Office of Diversity Education, spoke about the importance of stepping out of one’s “comfort zone and becoming more comfortable with others.”

One sentiment the speakers shared to preface their speeches was the sorrow that this happened, especially on the IU campus.

“IU is a really safe place,” Goldsmith said. “This event does not reflect on any one group, it’s just a sad incident.”