More than 100 Goucher College students walked out of classes at noon Monday to bring attention to the genocide in Darfur and to call for greater U.S. and U.N. action to end the killing.
Three busloads of students from the liberal arts college in Towson went to The Mall in Washington, D.C., Sunday to participate with tens of thousands of other activists in the Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide march.
Political science major Oliver Schwab said Sunday?s rally was planned to build on the momentum from the demonstration in the nation?s capital.
“We want to re-enforce the need to remain active,” Schwab said. “We can?t go to a demonstration one day, feel good about ourselves and then not do anything else. We recognize our privilege here and recognize the social responsibility that goes along with education.”
School administrators told Schwab they applauded the students? efforts, but refusedto circulate an e-mail notifying students, faculty and staff of the event.
According to Human Rights Watch, an estimated 2.4 million people in Sudan have been forced from their homes and at least 200,000 have been killed since 2003 in a war led by Sudanese government militias on Darfur-region rebels.
The “Stop and Think about Genocide” event at Goucher was largely pulled together by Schwab, Emma Batman, Mariah Healey, Shlaya Shamberg and Anna Tonelli, all part of the school?s nearly year-old Peace Studies program.
Each made a short address and later opened the discussion to students and faculty.
Shamberg, who walked out on her part-time library job, acknowledged, “the awkwardness and difficulty of facing the suffering of others,” and implored classmates “not to take the easy way out and remain inactive.”
Tonelli, of Goucher?s Amnesty International chapter, walked out of her French Literature presentation and said the newly formed Social Justice Coalition on campus wants President George W. Bush to garner multi national, multi faith support in the United Nations for a peace-keeping force of 20,000.
“We have 10-15 percent of the student body here, which is terrific,” said Sable Dawitt, Peace Studies program chair. “We want students to connect their spiritual selves and theoretical work in class with real action in a thoughtful, systemic and organized way.”
