Students also gave updated information about their meeting with state legislators last month. Members of the legislative black caucus will come to State College on
April 11 to meet with students and administrators, Morris said.
Also at the meeting, Chenits Pettigrew (senior-media studies) said the university seems to be withholding information about student safety.
He said several black football players had received racist death threats in connection with the team's disappointing season, a fact that had not been reported.
"The bottom line is there has definitely been some kind of university cover-up," Pettigrew said.
The meeting ended too late yesterday to seek comment from representatives of the football team.
Gabriel Bryant, president of the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments, listed statistics about the pervasive racial problems in Pennsylvania and at the university.
Bryant said the university pledged a $27 million investment in diversity several years ago — compared to a $97 million investment in the Beaver Stadium expansion.
He also pointed to the small size of the African and African-American Studies department at Penn State in comparison to peer universities.
"We're at the bottom of the list in the Big Ten Conference," Bryant said.
The student leaders yesterday said they are still working on a name for their organization, but noted it included members of Penn State Black Caucus and others.
They began their efforts to organize last fall, after a series of hate acts, including several racist death threats that were mailed to some students.
In their speeches to students in the HUB yesterday, they stressed that the problems affect more than just African-American students.
"Each and every single one of you has been failed by Penn State University," Queen Nworisara (junior-international politics) said over a microphone to a growing crowd.
LaKeisha Wolf, Black Caucus president, said that university officials were not meeting their obligation to the state of Pennsylvania.
"The bottom line is that there are laws being broken," she said.
Other black speakers urged other students to help their cause and opened the floor to questions.
Jennifer Storm, social director for the Lambda Student Alliance, explained to the crowd that the campus Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Ally Resource Room is experiencing many similar problems to those of the African and African-American Studies department.
"I want to know when we are gonna start working together and banding together for diversity," Storm said.
At the meeting later in the evening, Morris said the black student leaders have been trying to meet with other minority groups in the interest of helping everyone.
Expanding on her criticisms of the university, Wolf said the responsibility for resolving the racial problems at Penn State reaches beyond the university administration to the faculty and students.
"It's not just (Penn State president Graham) Spanier. It's not just (Vice Provost for Educational Equity) Terrell Jones. It's everybody." Wolf said, including Gov. Tom Ridge. "There's a lot of people responsible for what's going on," finished Pettigrew. "There are some really fundamental questions that need to be asked."
The students spent months collecting research about the problems of race relations at Penn State, some of which was in a report they presented to the state legislature and others.
"We, as students, work day and night on these issues," Morris said. "Just the fact that we are working that hard on something the administration is getting paid for — that needs to be questioned."
Collegian Staff Writer Renée Petrina contributed to this report.
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