It was the kind of crisis most universities dread.
In November 2006, a group of minority student leaders at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis threatened to sue the university if administrators did not heed demands that included providing more funding for multicultural student groups.
In a letter to university administrators, the leader of the university’s Black Student Union also appealed for the hiring of more African-American faculty and administrators. The demands came on the heels of several concerns expressed by minority students, including the fact that they did not feel welcome on campus and that requests for excursions by Black student groups were often rejected.
The mandate and threat of a lawsuit attracted the attention of community members and local and regional media. For the administration, the public revelation that an urban institution built in the center of Indianapolis’ African-American community failed to meet the needs of its Black students made for some discomfort.
“Black students felt alienated and dispossessed and they believed that the concerns of other groups on campus were attended to as their own concerns were virtually ignored,” says Dr. Chalmer Thompson, an associate professor in IUPUI’s College of Education. “What the students did in strongly calling for change was necessary and important.”
The outcome from that episode has produced some changes that intersect with other reforms at the university.
Among the changes:
