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[introduction not recorded] Jae Allen: [inaudible] review... Thank you, Jasmine. Review of the contract and ultimately the divestment from the Maryland Correctional Enterprises, increased multicultural diversity represented in the President's Diversity Coordinating Council, and the return of the debate team. Jae Allen: Now, though there have been lasting changes to the university because of this leadership from students, to this date, there are few records documenting the actual event of Occupy Towson Jae Allen: outside a handful of Towerlights that we have come across. So what we seek to do today is unfreeze some of these voices that have been captured in these fragments of a larger history of student activism and engage with them today and our panel.

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Jae Allen: So, before we get started, because there are topics that will come up... I'm going to Jae Allen: minimize this a little bit... Jae Allen: ...today that may be contentious, may be triggering, we're gonna just go over some community guidelines for participation, because we're gonna open it up at the end for audience Q&A as well. Jae Allen: There will be several perspectives offered here today, with an aim, ultimately, to give voice to a more holistic story of one moment of student activism.

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Jae Allen: So, some of the guidelines will be listen to learn. Our ultimate goal is understanding, speaking from our own experiences, rather than broad generalizations of others. Jae Allen: Leading with our curiosity rather than assumptions, so maybe leading with a question. Participate to your fullest stability, and then also leaving room for others to do so as well. Be cognizant of our body language, because Jae Allen: our nonverbal… Jae Allen: Our nonverbal responses and body language, they communicate messages as well. Intent can be different than impact. Accept and expect discomfort, so be open to changing your perspective if something challenges you. And then, of course, take care of yourself. There's food and water in the back, cookies, brownies.

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Jae Allen: Bathrooms, if you need to get up and take care of yourself. If you need to leave at any point, we are not going to hold you here. We want you to be as present as you can be. Jae Allen: Now, all of that being said, let's introduce today's panelists. Jae Allen: So we'll start with Ameena Ruffin. Ameena graduated from Towson's College of Liberal Arts in 2015. During their time at TU, Ameena competed as a policy debater and served as co-captain of TU Forensics, the debate team. Jae Allen: Following graduation, Ameena coached debate and taught middle school before earning a master's degree in Pan-African studies from the University of Louisville in 2025.

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Jae Allen: Ameena is currently pursuing doctoral studies and childhood studies at Rutgers University, Camden, where they continue their research on the histories of Black children. Jae Allen: Bilphena Yahwon is a cultural worker, archivist, and artist. Jae Allen: Bilphena is a collective member of publishing initiative Press Press, established in 2014, and steward of Memory Political Education Project Archive Liberia, established in 2020. In her practice, Bilphena engages with individual and collective memory, how it is inherited, preserved, and passed down. Jae Allen: Through archival work, publishing, and collective study, she cultivates methods for remembering otherwise and organizing against historical erasure.

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Jae Allen: Monaye Johnson is a doctoral student in Africana studies at Brown University. She is a writer, researcher, curator, and cultural worker. Her work looks at Black feminist theory, care ethics, and more. Jae Allen: And last but not least, we have Tammie King Kelly. Tammie is a dynamic higher education leader with over 20 years of experience in student development, advocacy, and program management. She has dedicated her career to fostering inclusive learning environments that empower students to thrive academically, socially, and personally. Jae Allen: As Director of Student Success Programs at Towson, Tammie oversees a comprehensive portfolio of initiatives designed to enhance retention, engagement, and graduation outcomes. Her work has earned university-wide recognition for innovation, collaboration, and impact on students. Jae Allen: And those are our panelists, but I cannot not introduce our moderator, L.X., who has been working with us over the last couple of months to make this event happen. They have been instrumental in dedicating themselves in research and data visualization. This is a map that they created,

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Jae Allen: allowing us to see what goes into coalition-building and relationships. They've done outreach, and they have continued to work on the digital humanities side of things by conducting oral histories, and creating a timeline, and that digital collection of materials Jae Allen: should be available, upcoming, once everything is finalized and we have all of those things in a pretty condition. Jae Allen: But with all of that said, Jae Allen: I'm gonna hand over the microphone to L.X., and we can begin our main panel discussion.

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L.X.: Hey everyone, this is L.X. Hope everyone's staying cozy and warm right now. It's freezing. L.X.: So, let's just go ahead and get started. L.X.: Please, share some details about your time at TU. So years, organizations you were a part of, or a role at TU at the time of Occupy, or between 2015 and 2016. Let's start with Bilphena. Bilphena Yahwon: Hi everybody, this is Bilphena speaking. If you see me looking to the side, it's because I am both on my computer and on my phone. I'm actually gonna flip

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Bilphena Yahwon: my phone so that you all see me better. Okay, there we go, that's much better. Bilphena Yahwon: So I'm Bilphena Yahwon. During my time at Towson, I was a part of the Black Student Union, I was a part of the African Diaspora Club as well, and when I say a part of, I was on the board for those organizations. And can you say the second part of the question, L.X.? L.X.: Sure, a role at TU at the time of Occupy, so, what role you may have played L.X.: during Occupy, or during the events of Occupy, or anywhere between 2015 and 2016, any involvement you may have had.

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Bilphena Yahwon: Okay, and I was also one of the core organizers of Occupy Towson, along with Monaye and John and Korey. Before Occupy Towson, that was Be The Change TU, which I think was a Bilphena Yahwon: bit more of a liberal version at the time, I would say, now that I have perspective of what Bilphena Yahwon: Occupy Towson would be. It was in response to some other events that had happened at Towson that we'll talk about tonight. And so that is part of the work I was doing on campus before, I became a core organizer of Occupy Towson. Bilphena Yahwon: Thank you.

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Monaye Johnson: Oh, is that... L.X.: On to Monaye. Monaye Johnson: Okay, hi everyone, my name is Monaye. I had a lot of roles. Looking back, I think I was a little overly involved. Monaye Johnson: I think my first official role was in the BSU, and I was also on the Poetry Slam team through BSU, I think it was called

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Monaye Johnson: TU Voice? Voices? Yes! Okay, so we were on Voices, and that's where I met Shay. Shay, at the time, was president of the BSU, and really, really held it down. Monaye Johnson: And then I was director of, I think, health in the SGA, and then director of diversity and inclusion, and then vice president of the Student Government Association. I was also a sexual assault peer educator with Kayla Cardin at the time, who I believe was working Monaye Johnson: in the health center, and also taught a course through the Gender Studies program. L.X.: Tammie, how about you?

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Tammie King-Kelly: So, good evening, everyone. So, during that time, Tammie King-Kelly: I was the coordinator for student success programs, primarily overseeing SAGE [Students Achieve Goals through Education], which is a peer mentoring program for incoming students and transfer students. I also sat on the executive board for Towson Black Alumni Alliance as the vice president. Tammie King-Kelly: And then I also served as advisor to several student organizations, along with Tammie King-Kelly: one of my colleagues at the time, Anee Korme, so we kind of split up some of the groups in being able to provide them with advisement. And at the time

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Tammie King-Kelly: Student Success Programs was a part of Center for Student Diversity, which was housed in Student Affairs, so we were all one unit at that time. L.X.: Thank you for that, and Ameena. Ameena Ruffin: Hi. So, I graduated from TU in spring of 2015, so I was an alum at the time of Occupy Towson, but I knew Korey, I knew John, and I spent most of my time at TU Ameena Ruffin: in the debate team room. I was a competitive debater, as mentioned, and I debated with Korey Johnson. We also

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Ameena Ruffin: were involved in Ameena Ruffin: some interactions with the school administration that kind of set the stage for how the school regarded the debate team, Ameena Ruffin: and… Yeah, Ameena Ruffin: outside of being the co-captain of TU Forensics, and mostly going to class, that… I did not do much else at Towson.

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Ameena Ruffin: Yeah. L.X.: That's fair, thank you. Thank you for sharing, everybody. L.X.: So, if you were directly involved in Occupy, if you could expand upon your role or some of the things that you were doing in order to make this happen, and if you weren't directly involved, how were you made aware of it? L.X.: So I will pass it to Monaye.

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Monaye Johnson: Oh, me first? Okay. I think my favorite memory Monaye Johnson: of how I got involved was I… There was some kind… I'm sorry, y'all, look, 10 years is a long time. Monaye Johnson: So, I'm gonna do my best to go through the archive of my brain, but there was a lot happening on campus. Specifically there was an event in my dorm room Monaye Johnson: where I think there was, like, a racialized event that happened in the dorm room, and I was living in it at the time, and these were at the towers. And that had kind of, like, sparked some things as I came in as a freshman.

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Monaye Johnson: And I think I remember Bilphena and John were, like, speaking, and I think this memory is so funny, Bilphena, because we were in the library, and I didn't know you like that at the time, but I think I had given, like, some feedback Monaye Johnson: on, like, one of the pre-actions before Occupy, and I remember this girl looked at me and said, okay, well, since you have something to say, join us. I said, okay! Monaye Johnson: And that was the beginning. Monaye Johnson: I think our role really was trying to

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Monaye Johnson: figure out what the next step was, because so much was bubbling on campus. And at the time, those bubbles feel disconnected, but they were all the same type of issue. I remember being at some of the events and noticing the unfair policing practices. Monaye Johnson: I think the rule at the time was if you had a certain amount of people at an event, then your student group had to pay for police presence at the event. And on the surface, Monaye Johnson: perhaps maybe that sounded like, okay, that's just a rule, but then you would go to a fraternity event, or a sorority event, Monaye Johnson: in the room next door, and they would have the same amount of people, and they wouldn't have to have that presence, and so

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Monaye Johnson: we were just all picking up on those things, and I think our role as core organizers was, one, how do we get all of this together? And then, two, what is the actual next step to confront the problem? Monaye Johnson: Which is why I think that first staging happened. No, before all of that staging, it was the emergency Black student meeting that was held in a random room where every single student group canceled their meeting that day, and we all huddled up Monaye Johnson: to just talk about every single isolated incident. Monaye Johnson: And I think… Were we note-takers that day, Bilphena? Yeah, and so I'll stop and let Bilphena kind of fill in some of the gaps. So that's what I remember about the days and weeks that led up to it.

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Bilphena Yahwon: Thank you, Monaye. Bilphena Yahwon: Yeah, so I forgot to mention a few other things. Like Monaye said, it's been 10 years. I was also one of the co-coordinators of the Council of Diverse Student Organizations. I was appointed to that position by Bilphena Yahwon: Victor Collins at the time, who was heading the CSD. And then I also was building council president for Scarborough, right? And so Bilphena Yahwon: what Bria [Monaye] mentioned about what had happened at the towers, we were also having these conversations across building councils because of other things that had been happening.

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Bilphena Yahwon: I also want to preface this by saying, before Occupy Towson, there was a White Student Union at Towson University, Bilphena Yahwon: and they had a particular event that they brought a white supremacist on campus, and there were a lot of debates around Black students around why Towson would allow this event to happen on campus. And there were also a lot of questions around SGA about whether the funds that were being used for this event were student funds. Bilphena Yahwon: And so I remember, because of the pressure, SGU ended up pulling out the funds from this event, so White Student Union had to fund it themselves, and they had to pay for the space. Bilphena Yahwon: But there was still that question of why were they allowed to have this event on campus?

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Bilphena Yahwon: At the time, Iggy was president of Black Student Union. This was when Adam was around. Dayvon, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, also debate team. They had a heavy presence on campus. They held an event for Black students to be able to express Bilphena Yahwon: a lot of their concerns around this. There are also events happening with Muslim students around this time as well, so there's a layered level of marginalization that we were seeing across campus, and so it's important to not just isolate, like, what led up to Occupy Towson as just simply concerns of Black students, because while it was Black students who organized Bilphena Yahwon: this, Muslim students at the time were also experiencing marginalization on campus. Bilphena Yahwon: And so

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Bilphena Yahwon: Iggy and Black Student Union held this event. There was a lot of tension. I even remember, like, the confrontation happening at the event, and it became a question of, and now what? What happens? Not only how do students respond to this white student incident, but how do we respond to the years of, like, Towson's history, right? And so, in terms of Bilphena Yahwon: Occupy Towson and my involvement, I was friends with John, and also in proximity friends with Korey as well. Bilphena Yahwon: And we had heard about some of… John had joined the debate team. We were both a part of Voices. We had heard about what had happened with the debate team, so that was kind of the thing that, like, really started to brew Occupy Towson. Bilphena Yahwon: And then Mizzou happened, right? So across, U.S. campuses,

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Bilphena Yahwon: multiple universities were having their own protests, beginning with Mizzou, where there was also a student that was on a hunger strike Bilphena Yahwon: in order for the university to respond to issues regarding anti-Blackness. There was a decision made across campus by Black students to hold an emergency meeting in which we were going to discuss what are the parallels between what is happening at Mizzou and the other university across the U.S. and what is happening at Towson. Bilphena Yahwon: At that time, me, John, Bria, we kind of served as observers and note-takers, because we wanted to thread together the streams, not just with us, but also with the African Diaspora Club. We also wanted to thread this string with the Muslim students, and we also wanted to thread this string with particularly the NPHC, which are the Black fraternities and Bilphena Yahwon: sororities on campus. And so it was after we had that meeting, We Are Mizzou, that then led to me, John, Bria, Korey getting together and beginning to formulate a list of demands and the idea of an action.

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L.X.: Thank you, Bilphena. L.X.: Tammie, how about you? L.X.: How are you made aware of it? Tammie King-Kelly: Well, I had started here in 2013, so, kind of fresh here as a staff person, but I'm also a Towson alum. So, very engaged. So, in working in the Center for Student Diversity, we were kind of the

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Tammie King-Kelly: advisors, if you will, to some of these organizations that Bilphena spoke about. We also, when the students came to us, they would huddle in our space, you know, ask questions, and we… Our roles were basically to Tammie King-Kelly: help them formalize what their asks were, and making sure that they were reasonable asks, not to silence them, but to make sure that… Because one of the things was, you know, the students wanted to seat at the table. Tammie King-Kelly: And so, one of the things we stress that once you're at the table, make sure you have an outcome that is reasonable. As it relates to the debate team, that was going on when I first arrived in 2013, and that was a whole 'nother situation where Towson Black Alumni Alliance Tammie King-Kelly: actually supported them in speaking with administration about their concerns as it related to the debate team.

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Tammie King-Kelly: And then, you know, a couple years later, it was Occupy Towson. So there were some concerns for students, as well as us with staff people, about how students of color were being treated. Tammie King-Kelly: There was an incident, I do remember, in the dorms over in the towers, where there was Black history Tammie King-Kelly: papers put up, information put up in a floor, and then it was taken down, and so that added to the distrust of our students, and also the upsetness of our students. And so we really just... Because we had the relationships with Tammie King-Kelly: Bilphena and Monaye and Korey and John, we just kind of were sounding boards for them in

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Tammie King-Kelly: what their next steps were. But we were surprised about Occupy Towson, when they went to take over the president's office, and Korey actually sent me a text when they were over there, and was like, you know, I know you all said Tammie King-Kelly: to take other steps, but we're sorry, we're gonna have to do it this way. And so, hence Occupy Towson. L.X.: Thank you, Tammie. And I'm just going to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about the debate team, if that's alright. L.X.: So, this question, Ameena, let's get started with you. What happened to the debate team, and how did they become involved with Occupy, or how were you aware of Occupy?

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Ameena Ruffin: Yeah, so I think, even thinking about my awareness of the events on campus and the tone on campus that was a precursor to Occupy, Ameena Ruffin: I think that that for me is a good place to start. In Ameena Ruffin: 2012, the debate team went through a series of changes, and as mentioned by Bilphena, Ameena Ruffin: Iggy, Ignacio Evans, was a important member of the Black Student Union, an important figure on campus, and also very significant in, just policy debate on the East Coast, in Baltimore City, and at Towson. And so

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Ameena Ruffin: as a member of the debate team, that is kind of how I remained always aware of what the Ameena Ruffin: kind of racial tenor was on campus, and we, in a very intimate space, because the debate team was small, were experiencing Ameena Ruffin: some racial abuses with the administration, with our coaching staff, and I think the Towerlight has some really good pieces that are in the Towson Archives about these events. But at a certain point in the summer Ameena Ruffin: of 2013, Towson and Towson's debate team hosted a camp on Towson's campus. Students for the camp were housed in the towers.

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Ameena Ruffin: As students on the debate team, we worked this camp, we were housed in the towers, and were expected in general to remain on the campus, and so Ameena Ruffin: given just the conflicts within the debate team, the conflicts with this kind of, like, Ameena Ruffin: volatile, toxic situation, there were complaints made, the debate coach was removed, and Ameena Ruffin: the director, who was married to the debate coach, remained in her role. And so in the fall of 2013, the debate team made another series of complaints. We were being told that we would not be allowed

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Ameena Ruffin: to travel to a tournament at Harvard University. And Korey and I, who had been debating together for a year at that point, Ameena Ruffin: were slated to Ameena Ruffin: essentially be ranked in the top 16 teams of the country, and it was significant historically and significant for us having started debating in Baltimore City and being come from an urban debate league. And so we knew that our coaching staff knew this, that the school administration knew this. Ameena Ruffin: And we took their

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Ameena Ruffin: denial of our ability to go to this tournament as, I mean, an attack, as an attempt to silence the complaints that we made, and also an attempt to reassert control over a majority Black debate team, with a majority white coaching staff and a majority white school administration. Ameena Ruffin: And so again, this is documented well in the Towerlight, and it's housed in the archives. We, Korey and I, became the Ameena Ruffin: first female Black team to win a policy debate tournament in the United States in 2014, and we Ameena Ruffin: received resolutions from the Senate of Maryland, from the Maryland House of Delegates, there was a profile in Essence, Brittany Cooper wrote a piece. It was a big deal, and it was draining, and it was emotionally exhausting, and

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Ameena Ruffin: we received support from portions of the university, and also we were Ameena Ruffin: kind of put back in the same position that we had been in. And so, in the fall of 2014, we found ourselves still without the resources that we needed, still without the emotional support that we needed, being expected to continue, Ameena Ruffin: I mean, with our success, with our competition. I separated from the debate team. Ameena Ruffin: Korey remained with the debate team. And I think my knowledge about the debate team and about Towson University is,

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Ameena Ruffin: I would say, kind of portioned off purposely in my brain because of a series of choices that I made, which was to request that I be allowed to take more than Ameena Ruffin: the allotted amount of courses for students, 21 credits, so that I could quickly leave Towson University. I discontinued my communication with Towson University Forensics for an extended period of time, until 2017 when I came back to coach some. Ameena Ruffin: And I began to heal from having been a student at Towson during the White Student Union and during the Youth for Western Civilization. My proximity to the Youth for Western Civilization's... Bilphena Yahwon: I'm sorry.

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Bilphena Yahwon: Sorry, Ameena… Bilphena Yahwon: Ameena, I don't want to interrupt, but there's a tech issue that is happening with in-person, and so I think for access reasons, we should probably pause and wait for them to get that up so that we can continue. Ameena Ruffin: That's fine. Please let me know. L.X.: Sorry about that, y'all.

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Ameena Ruffin: Oh no, it's fine. Bilphena Yahwon: Can you all hear us in person? Are we good to begin again? Todd-Diaz, Ashley: Yes, you are. Bilphena Yahwon: Okay, awesome. Go ahead, Ameena.

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Ameena Ruffin: Thank you. Ameena Ruffin: Yeah, and having been a student at the school during the time of the Youth for Western Civilization, and their faculty advisor having been Richard Vatz, who created a debate team scholarship that I received for several years, the entire experience was Ameena Ruffin: disorienting in various ways, but also, I think, Ameena Ruffin: for me, it became an absolute no-brainer that Korey and John and other students would occupy these offices, especially given the promises that I know that we as a debate team

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Ameena Ruffin: were given in person, and the ways that, ultimately, we were left without a lot of care or protection after making a lot of history for Towson University. L.X.: Thank you for sharing that, and again, sorry for the interruption there. L.X.: How about Bilphena? What was your take on the debate team? Bilphena Yahwon: I think Ameena covered it. I wasn't as privy to the inner details about what was happening in the debate team outside of what Korey and John would relay. I also remember reading the piece in the Towerlight about the debate team. I think the biggest thing that we understood at the time, though, as Black students was the historical significance of the debate team,

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Bilphena Yahwon: particularly their ability to put language to the struggle of Black students, and we saw them central to any movement that would happen at Towson because of that. And so Bilphena Yahwon: that is why we included bringing the debate team back to a full traveling team in the list of demands, because we felt that they had a historical significance to any radical movements that occurred at Towson University. L.X.: I see, that makes a lot of sense, yeah. L.X.: Going on to the next question…

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L.X.: Some of the demands from Occupy were increased tenured and L.X.: tenure-track Black faculty and retaining them by 10% by 2018. L.X.: Increasing content on race in the core curriculum, equitable policing practices. L.X.: How do you feel about the demands today, and do you believe they were adequately met?

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L.X.: Let's start with Bilphena. Bilphena Yahwon: If someone else could answer, I want to give a second to think about that question, and then come back to me, please. L.X.: Sure, no worries. Monaye, how about you? Monaye Johnson: Yeah,

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Monaye Johnson: do I think that they were fairly met? It's hard to answer that question in the Trump era. Monaye Johnson: When I look at what's happening to universities right now, it's almost like, oh, we didn't go far enough. Thinking about the wide scale in which the right is attempting to overhaul institutions, it's like, oh, okay, Monaye Johnson: yeah, the leftist demands definitely could have gone further. I think that it's important to put in context that we sat in the BSU office, I think nearly overnight, and, like, hand-wrote Monaye Johnson: those demands, and so it was really… Like, Occupy Towson, it happened very fast.

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Monaye Johnson: And I think that's a really important context to the story. Monaye Johnson: You know, sometimes when things are going on in the environment that you are in, you don't always get a lot of time to plan out a full, comprehensive strategy. We did our best, and we did it alongside understanding Towson's history, we pulled in theory, and then we also just listened to people. Monaye Johnson: I think that Monaye Johnson: we saw in the aftermath that there were some things in that moment that we missed, and I think that's a key part of the story, but for me

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Monaye Johnson: I think our demand to divest was one of the ones that I was most proud of that we did. And I say that because we were thinking so quickly, and it was done with such a quick turnaround, and yet we still understood that this wasn't just about making Monaye Johnson: our lives better as Black students in the context of Towson. Monaye Johnson: This wasn't just so that we could have more joy. This wasn't, like, meant to be a liberal sort of celebratory thing where we get to say we did this, and now, for the next four years, we don't have any problems. We really did try to think about every aspect of Black life Monaye Johnson: that the university has some domination over, and so we even wanted to think about what it would mean to organize with dining hall workers, and what it would mean to support their contract negotiations, right?

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Monaye Johnson: That demand for our professors came because right before that, it was about two Monaye Johnson: phenomenal Black women professors who were denied tenure. And denied tenure after they had had multiple promotions and, like, great reviews, right? And so, just thinking about every single aspect of the university was really important. Monaye Johnson: This was also at a time where the election had either… It was about to happen. Monaye Johnson: And we knew who was running, right? That was the first Trump regime, and we knew some of the things that he was planning on the broader spectrum. One of the things that I wish we would have added in the demands was thinking about the changes he was going to propose to Title IX.

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Monaye Johnson: And just thinking about sexual violence on campus and how that impacts Black students. I'm sorry, you hear my dog. I wish that was in there. Monaye Johnson: Of course, you know, Black queer students wanted more specific demands related to what they were experiencing. Monaye Johnson: So, you know, even I can look back and say, in some ways, I wish we would have gone further, but in other ways, we were at, like, 18, 19, and 20, and I'm so proud of what we did in that moment. Monaye Johnson: So, yeah, I'm gonna pause there, and I'll give it back to you, Bilphena, and see what awakens in my mind after you speak.

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Bilphena Yahwon: Yeah, I think, you know, the… Monaye mentioned we were writing the list of demands up as we were walking up to the president's office, right? Literally had gathered in Freedom Square from the BSU office, Bilphena Yahwon: had the computer in hand and was still typing, and one of the last demands that were actually added was the demand around divestment from prison labor, as a university, which I think was, Bilphena Yahwon: as Monaye mentioned, one of the proud… My proudest addition that we added, but also one of the ones that really summarized the totality of what we were attempting to say at the university. That the issues that exist outside of the university walls also exist within the university walls, and that the university is also a site of exploitation, right? Bilphena Yahwon: And we see that with the fact that our furniture and our appliances

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Bilphena Yahwon: at these universities were being made in prisons, through MCE, Maryland Correctional Enterprises. And so that is a demand that we know we've got the most amount of pushback from. I mean, to this day, it is a demand that I think is largely ignored and not really talked about, because of the politics around it, down to how the SGA at the time chose to handle Bilphena Yahwon: that list of demands. In terms of the tenureship process, we came to that understanding after we would meet in circles with Black professors at Towson and kind of figure out what were some of their concerns. So after We Are Mizzou happened, we had different student organizations and professors reach out to us and basically say, here are some of the areas and gaps that you all have that you're not considering. Bilphena Yahwon: Because truthfully, at the time, we had not thought all the way through Bilphena Yahwon: about the plight of the Black professor, a Black instructor at the university. It really took us to sit down with them to understand

00:36:31.780 - 00:37:52.540

Bilphena Yahwon: the complexities of that, and that is why we added it. And as Monaye put, we also were specific in understanding the publications that Black professors would publish through, and understanding those publications as rigorous, versus how the university at the time was rating the publications that many Black professors would submit to. So for those who may not understand the Bilphena Yahwon: tenure process, there are publications that are ranked 5, right? And a lot of those publications that are ranked 5 or higher are white publications. And then you might have a Black publication that many Black professors and Black students are familiar with, and that publication might be ranked a 2, right, in terms of rigor. But it is really ranked that way because of anti-Blackness and issues around, like, Bilphena Yahwon: who are knowledge producers and so forth. And so we also wanted to address that. And so Bilphena Yahwon: I don't think any of our... In terms of long-term, I don't think any of the list of demands were really taken seriously and into account, to be very honest. This is why, right after Occupy Towson, a year after John wrote a piece where he talks about the ways in which… I think about Joy James' Captive Maternal, right? And essentially, how we were a part of the captive maternal

00:37:52.540 - 00:38:46.720

Bilphena Yahwon: Towson, and how the university was able to take a moment like Occupy Towson, and get a lot of applause in terms of DEI and diversity and so forth, but the actual tangible things that we attempted to bring out of it, it did not last, right? There was not any longevity to it, and we really didn't see them, across-board at the Bilphena Yahwon: University, Bilphena Yahwon: applied. That is why now you can go at Towson and ask a student there, and they couldn't even tell you what a list of demands was, right? We were essentially wiped out of the historical memory of the university, hence why you are doing this project. And so, yes, you know, the tenure process, I'm proud of that, but I have to say, of all of the things on the demand, divestment from prison labor, to me, was the most robust thing that we had on there Bilphena Yahwon: that I am most proud of.

00:38:47.550 - 00:39:42.980

Monaye Johnson: And I'll add… This wasn't a part of the list of the demands, but I will always give Monaye Johnson: the folks from LBS who gave us some advice credit, because they were the ones who told us, even before, I think maybe right after Occupy, that what we needed to do was put a Black student with the right ideology in every single sector of the university. Every single one. Monaye Johnson: And so, I think that, for us, or at least for me, I'll speak for myself, was one of the really, really biggest, most concrete moments of me really understanding power Monaye Johnson: and really understanding what it means to occupy space for a very specific purpose, and to, like, what it means to go into a space and understand that the vote that you cast in that space, you are actually… It has already been casted by the community that you serve, and, like, the people that you are responsible to.

00:39:43.200 - 00:40:20.810

Monaye Johnson: And so I definitely credit us for even attempting Monaye Johnson: to do something like that, and that took having people strategically placed in SGA, having someone, a strategic person leading BSU, right? Every single thing that made Occupy Towson, or just the power that we had on that campus, briefly possible, Monaye Johnson: it took the students who huddled up in that office Monaye Johnson: knowing that they had a role to play in the dailiness of their time at Towson. And so I'm proud of a revelation like that

00:40:20.830 - 00:41:06.700

Monaye Johnson: at 19 years old, and I think that's what led to the creation of Towson Freedom School, because we understood this takes steady to be able to really think about how we do something like this. L.X.: Yeah, definitely. Thank you for sharing, y'all. How about you, Tammie? Tammie King-Kelly: So my lens is a little bit different, as an alum and as a staff person. So, again, our role in the Center for Student Diversity was to support our students in helping them formulate Tammie King-Kelly: the areas of concern and challenge that they want to address. Knowing the…

00:41:06.820 - 00:42:05.710

Tammie King-Kelly: I don't like to call them demands, the concerns that they had. Tammie King-Kelly: For the most part, all of them have been addressed, except for we're still a work in progress regarding the tenure Tammie King-Kelly: track for our Black faculty, and the increase of them on campus, and the MCE portion, and again, that is, when we talked to SGA, when they have Tiger Pride Day, down in Annapolis, we shared with them, that's where that kind of concern should be raised, because it's not just a Towson. Tammie King-Kelly: The MCE makes furniture for all state agencies, so I do remember, present at the time, Kurt Anderson, he put together a… Secured a bus and invited students to go with him to the facility to actually speak with the inmates. He took that trip alone.

00:42:05.740 - 00:42:45.730

Tammie King-Kelly: And he came back with a report about how these people who were incarcerated, they were able to learn different trades, so that when they were released, Tammie King-Kelly: that was one of the benefits, and when they were released they were able to seek Tammie King-Kelly: employment, as opposed to going back to the life that caused them to be incarcerated. Tammie King-Kelly: And also, out of the thing, I think because of the hard work of, you know, Bilphena, Korey, Monaye, John, you know, the Office of Institutional Inclusion and Equity was established as a division.

00:42:45.730 - 00:43:28.890

Tammie King-Kelly: And that also translated into the Center for Student Diversity being moved to that division, as was several other areas that were part of Student Affairs, because the focus was to make sure that, Tammie King-Kelly: you know, these concerns were addressed as it related to the students. And so, you know, which, that work continues to today. So, I think there has been Tammie King-Kelly: some Tammie King-Kelly: success from it. I also… Do I think there's more work to be done? Absolutely. Particularly now, because, you know, it seems like hour by hour

00:43:28.890 - 00:44:14.780

Tammie King-Kelly: we don't know what to expect, as long as we have this president in office, and so it does make it a challenge for some of the work that has been done for the institution to continue. So, yeah. L.X.: Thanks for sharing, everyone. I think we're gonna… Bilphena Yahwon: L.X., I'm sorry, I just wanted to say one thing, because, I mean, I guess this is why it's important we have both perspectives, like, Tammie's as a staff at the time, and us as organizers Bilphena Yahwon: of Occupy Towson. I forgot to mention, around MCE particularly, we did have a demo where we confronted the Board of Regents here.

00:44:14.780 - 00:45:08.910

Bilphena Yahwon: So after Bilphena Yahwon: Kurt had put together the trip to the correctional facility, I want to be clear that us as Occupy Towson were always against that trip, and we were against the report that came back. And the reason why we were against the report that came back, because we were clear that Bilphena Yahwon: those members and students who went to that prison did not have a political understanding of what happens in prisons. So, of course, they came back and said, you know, while the prisoners felt like they benefited from the trade. The conversation is not whether those who are in prison are given skills, right, to be able to build furniture. The conversation is about prison itself as a Bilphena Yahwon: of slavery and exploitation, and the fact that the university and us as students were particularly, and very specifically, funding slave labor

00:45:08.910 - 00:46:20.380

Bilphena Yahwon: because those who are in prison, despite the fact that they have all of these skills, they're being paid not… I mean, cents per day to be able to produce these furnitures. Not only that, but when they do come out of prisons, something that you would hear a lot, from those who come home, they're not even given the opportunity to flex these skills. So Bilphena Yahwon: who becomes the benefactory of the skills in prison? It is the state, right? It is not the person that is in prison. And so, I don't want it to seem that we were in agreeance with that trip or that report. Bilphena Yahwon: As Occupy Towson, we fought against that report, and we took it so far as to when the Board of Regents came to Towson, we confronted them, and we began to organize. We went to Morgan, we went to Hopkins, we went to Goucher, and we went to a few other universities at Towson to educate them about the complexities of prison industrial complex in the U.S, in Maryland, in Baltimore, and what it means to be a Bilphena Yahwon: student that is benefiting from prison labor at a university, and the fact that that report did not have the political understanding that it needed to have to do what we needed it to do.

00:46:21.150 - 00:47:17.710

Monaye Johnson: Yeah, and I just want to also add to that that there are several instances in which someone is being exploited, and then also is trying to grapple with Monaye Johnson: holding where they think they may benefit from that exploitation, but I think there's been no point in history in where organizers have had to accept that benefit at face value. Monaye Johnson: And so I think in the grand scheme of things, like Bilphena has so eloquently said, that is still one of the most profound forms of exploitation that the university is engaged in, and there's no small individual level of benefit to me Monaye Johnson: that overpowers the fact that that demand needs to be met. And I think increasingly now, in the Trump regime, we see even more what's happening to Black people in prisons, and I think when we look at what universities are involved in as it relates to

00:47:17.750 - 00:47:53.820

Monaye Johnson: investments in war weapons, investments in prison, investments directly in Israel, I won't dance around that. Monaye Johnson: There is a whole host of divestment, like, just the realm of divestment that needs to occur, and there is no benefit that outweighs the harm that is being caused. L.X.: Appreciate that, y'all. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. L.X.: I think we're gonna go ahead and turn back to Jasmine, with the Q&A from the audience, if that's alright.

00:47:56.380 - 00:48:28.380

Jasmine Malone: Thank you, L.X. I'm turning my camera on. Jasmine Malone: Great. Hi everyone, my name is Jasmine Malone. I am Digital Archivist at Special Collections and University Archives at Towson, and I'm moderating the Zoom today. So if you don't have any questions on Zoom, I want to turn it over to the room in person to see if there are any questions for our panelists. Jasmine Malone: The room is muted, so we can't hear it. Jae Allen: We have a question.

00:48:29.100 - 00:49:15.930

Jae Allen: That's a little bit of an awkward setup. These things are heavy, my gosh. Audience Member: Thank you so much for sharing your perspective. I actually have a question about the divestment, the MDE issue that came up. So, I came to Towson 10 years ago in summer of 2015, and was hearing all this, saw the demands. I'm a professor here, and Audience Member: I was so surprised to see those demands, the prison industrial complex demand, and I wanted to go back to Monaye when you first made the point that you were thinking… I'd been at several other universities before coming here, you were thinking about Audience Member: things way beyond your own… What was happening to you as individual students on campus, which I was so impressed by, but how did you even learn about the connection between Towson, I mean, the state and MDE? I've wanted to know the answer to this question for 10 years, so…

00:49:20.140 - 00:50:27.000

Bilphena Yahwon: Thank you for that question. Research. We did a lot… Bilphena Yahwon: I think, you know, oftentimes when people… Occupy Towson itself as the demonstration that occurred was very fast in how it happened. The actual protest, occupying of the president at the time, Timothy Chandler, his office, was about 12 hours. Bilphena Yahwon: But the amount of time that went into figuring out what we were going to put on these lists of demands, we were meeting with anybody and everybody on campus. And actually, how that demand came about was after we met with service workers on campus, and they were the one that actually brought that to our attention. Because, Bilphena Yahwon: we started to think about how labor worked at Towson. We would see things, and talk to service workers, specifically in the, the liberal arts building, about how they were treated at Towson, about their work environment. And I don't know who specifically or how, but the issue of, have you ever looked at the appliances

00:50:27.000 - 00:51:29.660

Bilphena Yahwon: that are used to make food for you at this university came up. And that was how, the issue of MCE, Maryland Correctional Enterprises, and Towson's investment, and all of the university that is part of USM, their investment in prison labor came up. So, lots and lots of research is how we got there. Monaye Johnson: Yeah, and I think in connection to that, Monaye Johnson: there was research done just in general on, like, the university's funding structure Monaye Johnson: and, like, just the apparatus of university funding, and that's why I brought up the point about investments in weaponry, investments in imperialism, right? All of those things that constitute the financial structure of the university were what we started to dig into. Now, we didn't have enough time to go figure out

00:51:29.660 - 00:52:07.200

Monaye Johnson: what does Towson University have stock in? Monaye Johnson: You know, what do they actually get their money from? But that was one of the things that came up, and I think we were like, you know, this is a throughline to Blackness, we're gonna keep this in here. Jae Allen: Any other questions in the room? Anything pop up through Zoom? Jasmine Malone: The only question that popped up on Zoom was answered in the last response. The question for the folks in the room was, how long did Occupy Towson last? And the answer to that was 12 hours.

00:52:10.010 - 00:52:55.810

Jasmine Malone: There is a question in the chat, I'll read that out now. For students who want to continue pushing for divestment, what kind of guidance or support do you wish you had at the time, and what would you like to see for students who want to continue this work? Monaye Johnson: I definitely… I wouldn't say Monaye Johnson: it's, like, a guidance I wish I had at the time, because, again, Occupy happened so quickly that I do believe that guidance was there, it was just a matter of the timing, but I think more deep study about your university is really important, and I think that that's something that a lot of students don't do. Monaye Johnson: And, you know, one of the things that was directly said to us was to think beyond ourselves.

00:52:56.080 - 00:53:45.260

Monaye Johnson: We were directly told to, one, study what has happened on this campus before us, and two, think beyond ourselves. And we took those two pieces of advice very, very seriously. And so, looking at what was being asked before you got there Monaye Johnson: and what can you build on? And then thinking again, like, what is interconnected? We always rejected this idea that the university is a microcosm of the world, and we always said the university is the world. And so, Baltimore City is right there, right? And so, what's the connection? Monaye Johnson: So I definitely think that Monaye Johnson: I would love to see students continuing that deep, deep, deep investigative research that it takes to understand, and I think

00:53:45.260 - 00:54:31.600

Monaye Johnson: as you navigate this Trump era, you need to be very attuned to the concessions that your university may be making behind the scenes. I'm at Brown University, my university signed a deal with the Trump administration, and we have to actively think about the implications of that every single day. And so we need to think about where money is going. Monaye Johnson: We need to think about how the funding is being shifted and towards what. Monaye Johnson: You really need to pay attention to those 10-year statistics. You need to pay attention to those enrollment numbers. You need to pay attention to how the humanities is treated during these times. You need to pay attention to what foreclosures of thought happen on your campus. Monaye Johnson: And you really just have to pay attention to how these changes on the federal level are going to impact

00:54:31.600 - 00:55:22.300

Monaye Johnson: the university, you need to think about the ways in which violence is going to reinforce itself on your campus. All of those things matter, and it's a really tough and exhausting and overwhelming thing to think about, but it is necessary, and we had to do it, and so I have so much admiration for students, undergraduate students during this time, Monaye Johnson: thinking about the encampments to thinking about now, what's needed is some of the strongest student organizing that we have ever seen. Monaye Johnson: And you all are gonna have to have a level of courage that even superseded us. We were folded back into neoliberalism, and the university was able to, you know, make us be the good organizers, and so we didn't get in trouble. Todd-Diaz, Ashley: And I own that, right? Even when we interrupted the Board of Regents, we didn't get expelled.

00:55:22.300 - 00:56:26.940

Monaye Johnson: We didn't endure what the encampment students endured, and so I definitely want to say that what I want students to continue, which you're being actively socialized to not do, is have some courage. Monaye Johnson: Have some courage specifically, and have some hard lines about where your university gives money to, because that matters right now. Bilphena Yahwon: Yeah, I agree with a lot of what Monaye said, and I think a big part of it, too, is, like, how do we understand historical memory as students? You know, we were lucky enough to be able to Bilphena Yahwon: be within the lineage of the 1970 protests that took place at Towson by the Black Student Union at the time, right? And so Occupy Towson is not an isolated event. It is within the lineage of Black student protests that have happened at the university before, and there are a lot of students who are also not familiar with that history, right? So if it's only been 10 years

00:56:27.060 - 00:57:47.040

Bilphena Yahwon: and you have so many students on Towson's campus right now who do not even know what Occupy Towson is, who don't understand the lineage of Towson's Freedom School, who may not even understand how they were able to see some of the changes that they may see. Now imagine those organizers of the 1970s, and then before and before. And so Bilphena Yahwon: when we cut off historical memory, it makes us believe that everything we're doing, we're the inventors of. Bilphena Yahwon: And in order for us to have courage, we have to understand that we didn't invent courage, right? And that what we're doing is standing on the shoulders of a movement that has happened before, and blueprints and guidance is within those movements. And so we don't need to invent the wheel and invent new things to do, but instead what we have to do is continue the work and see what we do now in continuation. Bilphena Yahwon: And so what I would hope is to see more students who are revisiting the list of demands, students who are having conversations around the list of demands, students who are asking questions about the list of demands, and also following our footsteps in which we saw down to service workers as an essential part of the university, an essential piece to our stories. I think a lot of times what tends to happen when you're

00:57:47.040 - 00:58:49.160

Bilphena Yahwon: at a university is you see yourself as separate from everyone else, right? And I mean, that is what the university is there to do to you, right? We're conditioned into those behaviors. The university prepares us, for, in some sense, a life of being docile. And so, I think what we need new students to do is to push back against that, and to do the studying, as Monaye mentioned, that is necessary to have context Bilphena Yahwon: to what has been done before. Bilphena Yahwon: In terms of the divestment, the thing we were not able to do to really fully push the organizing around the divestment is meet with all of the other universities Bilphena Yahwon: under USM. If you are a student who you are able to reach out to the universities under USM and begin meeting with them, to me, to us at the time, we understood that was the key, because we know that the way that the laws work within the state of Maryland, one university cannot make the decision to divest, right? It has to be a USM-wide decision.

00:58:49.160 - 01:00:06.960

Bilphena Yahwon: And so that means that the organizing has to happen across USM. And so I think that would be my biggest place where I would want students to pick back up, and that also means going to your SGA, because, as Tammie mentioned, that report that I talked about that we were so against as Occupy Towson came out of SGA, and SGA at the time had power, right? And power enabled to shape the narrative Bilphena Yahwon: around divestment. And unfortunately, the narrative that was shaped worked against the organizing that we were attempting to do. So what would it mean to go to SGA and attempt to figure out, okay, this is the history that was left behind by SGA, how do we flip that? How do we do something different? What does a new report look like with new political understanding and new studying, and now that we're familiar with Bilphena Yahwon: what Occupy Towson meant when they say divest from prison labor? Jae Allen: Thank you both for those reflections to the question. In the interest of time, I think we'll close the Q&A session here, but obviously this is just an entry point to this conversation. I'm gonna pull my slides back up, just so we conclude here.

01:00:07.340 - 01:00:33.190

Jae Allen: If I could find them… Yeah, there they are. Jae Allen: All right. Jae Allen: We did that. Jae Allen: Okay, so to wrap up, I think that Monaye and Bilphena have set us up for an important lasting question, maybe some sentiments of

01:00:33.290 - 01:01:20.030

Jae Allen: how are we combating historical amnesia from class to class, from generation to generation? As they mentioned, we had students back in 1970 who also held a sit-in in the president's office with their own drafted list of demands. Jae Allen: That continued 10 years ago with Occupy Towson, and students today are challenged with Jae Allen: a new political landscape that requires us to tap in and lean into where we are. That being said, Jae Allen: we have an opportunity for conversations like this to exist, where this recording will exist, where we've already conducted oral histories with alumni,

01:01:20.030 - 01:02:06.790

Jae Allen: and L.X. has also conducted three new oral histories in relation to Occupy Towson. So, if you are curious about how to continue this conversation, getting involved in this kind of work Jae Allen: to remember these moments in history, Unearthing Towson's History Project is one way to do that, and you can contact us at Jae Allen: SCUA@towson.edu. Jae Allen: And then just a bit of housekeeping. If you're here for class credit or extra credit, there is a QR code just to mark your attendance, because I want you to get your points for showing up and listening in. I want to thank our panelists, I appreciate… We appreciate your reflections and your time for being here, and then also L.X.,

01:02:06.790 - 01:02:34.360

Jae Allen: I want to thank you for moderating and researching throughout these Jae Allen: last few months. It's kind of crazy to be here, because it's an hour of your time, but we've prepared for so long to be here now. And then I want to thank the audience members for your patience, your time, your questions, all insightful things. I think on that note Jae Allen: we'll call it a day, and a round of applause for everybody.