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The posts that Student Government Association President Malachi Randolph made through his personal Twitter account Tuesday did offend and will continue to hurt some students on campus, despite what some students consider to be just a subtweet.
Randolph’s pending resignation is necessary for many parts of campus to get past the derogatory comments made toward Chinese students, including his hashtag that seemed to hit students particularly hard on Twitter: #Americaisbest.
In the 2012-2013 academic year, 767 international students from countries in Asia attended Ball State. Among those international students, 330 were from China. The university also had 171 Asian-American students in attendance last year. So, more than 900 students were ostracized — and many more were offended — by comments made by an elected official who not only represents SGA, but the entire student body and Ball State as a whole.
The passive-aggressive behavior Randolph demonstrated goes against all of the diversity goals Ball State works toward each year.
In a time when we should celebrate the diversity achievements of the university, these negative statements will unfortunately take precedent. On Friday, Indiana District 6 Rep. Luke Messer will be on campus to give an award to Ball State from the Commerce Department for its efforts in recruiting international students. These comments could make Messer and others think of Ball State in a new, negative light.
Imara Dawson, executive director of the Rinker Center, said he hopes the news won’t leave a bad impression.
“I would hope they would look at Ball State University as a whole and not take one incident and make a broad brush of what Ball State students are like,” he said.
Chloe Anagnos, SGA vice president, will take the position a week after Randolph formally resigns, and the SGA executive board will still have amends to make with the students who were clearly rejected by their student leader’s comments. The executive slate did make it clear through a statement Tuesday that the comments made by Randolph were his alone, but they will still need to rebuild relationships with the students affected.
The new leadership is necessary. We just hope the newly rearranged executive board knows the power of its words, even if on a personal Twitter account.
SGA also needs to take the appropriate actions to regain the trust and appreciation of the students who Randolph hurt and offended.
