The high-profile case of racial bullying and abuse of a Black freshman, Donald Williams Jr., in 2013, put a spotlight on the mistreatment and harassment many minority students say they feel on an ongoing basis at SJSU — a school of 33,000 where only 3 percent of the student body is African-American.
Last month, Williams told a jury that the incidents — which included having a bike lock clamped around his neck, getting forcefully locked inside his closet, and being called racial slurs such as “Three-fifths” and “Fraction,” in reference to the way the Constitution counted Black slaves for representation — made him feel like “less than a human being.”
But on March 14, hate crime charges were formally dropped against the 20-year-old defendants, Colin Warren and Logan Beaschler, who were found guilty of misdemeanor battery and sentenced to one month in jail or weekend work. A dormmate, Joseph “Brett” Bomgardner, 21, received a one-day jail sentence and credit for time served. All three men must complete 50 hours of volunteer work and enroll in a sensitivity class about African-American history and culture.
When the news was announced, anger erupted on the SJSU campus. Last Thursday, more than 100 students, many of them wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts, gathered to protest what they called a grossly unjust decision.
“We’re all outraged about the verdict. We thought we were going to get the justice that we deserved,” Donntay Moore-Thomas, an organizer with the Black Unity Group, told Diverse. Her group, which is part of the Black Student Union, was joined by members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, African American Society of Mentors and MEChA, the Chicano student movement, among others.
“We believed it was a hate crime,” she said. “We are disappointed with the trial, the verdict and how the administration handled it.”
