In a Homecoming Video Meant to Unite Campus, Almost Everyone Was White

MADISON, Wis. — The video was just two minutes long: a sunny montage of life at the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison. Here were hundreds of young men and women cheering at a football game, dancing in unison, riding bicycles in a sleek line, “throwing the W” for the camera, singing a cappella, leaping into a lake.

“Home is where we grow together,” a voice-over said. “It’s where the hills are. It’s eating our favorite foods. It’s where we can all harmonize as one. Home is Wisconsin cheese curds. It’s welcoming everyone into our home.”

Days before Homecoming Week, the student homecoming committee, tasked with producing the video, posted it online. The outrage was almost instantaneous. Virtually every student in the video was white.

This is the story of a video that galvanized and divided a university plagued by a history of racist incidents, as told by the people who saw it happen. Black students in particular say the homecoming video crystallized a daily fact of life: They feel they are not wanted at the University of Wisconsin, where there are significantly fewer African Americans per capita than in the state, which is mostly white. This fall, more than 30,000 undergraduates began the school year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fewer than 1,000 of them are African American.

On the first day of classes in September, to get a deeper understanding of life on a college campus, we began interviewing students in Madison about their academic aspirations, about race, about free speech, debt and relationships. By the end of September, reaction to the homecoming video erupted, and our conversations with students throughout the fall semester began to be dominated by the topic, a window into their complicated and evolving views on race.

To students of color, the homecoming video was a glimpse of what they experienced every day as they walked through campus. The video prompted a burst of student activism, an attempt by university officials to educate about diversity and a reckoning over who feels at home at the University of Wisconsin.

Here is how the episode unfolded.

Late September: ‘It Woke People Up’

The video was never supposed to attract much attention.

The homecoming committee, a group of several dozen students, has a simple mission: celebrating the university during Homecoming Week with a string of events including a 5K run, blood drive and parade.

A video would boost the promotional aspect of it all, the students decided, a short, visual ode to school spirit. The committee enlisted student organizations to be filmed — among them Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically black sorority.

At the end of September, the video was finished and posted on Facebook. No one expected it to be seen very widely.

One evening, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha noticed that the video had been posted online.

Payton Wade, 21, a senior and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha: We were tagged on Facebook when they said a “thank you” to all of the organizations who participated in the video. And I watched the video and I realized that we weren’t in it.

Olivia Lopez, 22, a senior from Milwaukee who identifies as biracial: People started talking about it Monday, and they actually took it down off their website and their Facebook. But a couple of our peers had screen recorded it so that people could still see it and know what all the uproar was about.

Wade’s Facebook page: I am sharing this post because the Epsilon Delta Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. was asked to participate in this video and explain what we thought “home is” here at UW-Madison. Not only did we tell them what we thought home was but we also took hours out of our day to film as well and were told we would be in the video and notified when it was completed. UW-Madison is home to students who see Black students as less than and unfit to be at this university. UW-Madison is home to Black students who fear for their safety because of the color of their skin.

Lopez: I was just like, how did they not realize how wrong this is?

Soon, the homecoming committee issued an apology.

Statement from the homecoming committee: To promote student Homecoming, we recently produced a video called “Home Is Where WI Are,” and we invited various student groups to participate in the video. Unfortunately, not all the video images produced were included in the final product, including those of students from under represented populations. We regret omitting those images and we recognized that, by doing so, we unintentionally caused hurt to members of our campus community. We are sorry that our video failed to show the full breadth of the university experience and made members of our community feel excluded.

Students of color were upset, the university’s administration was scrambling and even many white students agreed that members of Alpha Kappa Alpha should have been included. But the video stirred a different feeling, too.

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Emilie Cochran, a reporter for The Badger Herald student newspaper who covered the story: It made people uncomfortable, seeing a lot of people who look alike representing the university. And it woke people up, saying, this is actually what our university looks like.

Two weekends later: ‘You’re Trying to Fix Things’

The video had been deleted for more than a week, but it would not go away.

Copies that students had made were watched on phones in dorms, coffee shops and the student union. Campus newspapers covered the story, and so did The Wisconsin State Journal, in which a headline declared, “UW-Madison Apologizes for Now-Deleted Homecoming Video of Nearly All-White Student Body.” The students of the Homecoming Committee continued with their planned week of events before the homecoming football game, hoping the furor would die down.

Students of color pushed in the other direction. They formed a group called the Student Inclusion Coalition. Their suggestion was to use the upcoming game to address outrage over the video. The administration agreed to help make a new video. This one would feature students of color — and it would be broadcast at halftime.

As tens of thousands of students and alumni were gathered at Camp Randall Stadium to watch the Badgers face off against Michigan State University, the new video began to play.

Kingsley-Reigne Pissang, 21, a senior and president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, who narrated the new video’s voice-over: I’m originally from Detroit, Michigan, and my family came up for the Michigan State game. My mom went to Michigan State, my uncle went to Michigan State, and so it was really like a family affair. When it came on, my aunt was kind of watching, and I took a video of her reacting to it. And at the end my mom was just like, ‘Was that you?’ It was just like watching their faces kind of brighten up and seeing that support system, of just how great it is, that impact. That’s going to be something that sticks with me forever.

Emilie Springsteen, 18, a freshman theater major who is white, from Cumberland, Wisconsin: All of us, the whole student section, almost started laughing at it. We were just staring at it with disgust, almost as if, OK, you’re trying to fix things.

Nile Lansana, 22, a junior and poet who is black, from Chicago: For people who didn’t exactly know what was going on, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, that’s cute. People of color. Yay!” But for people who do know what was going on, I feel like the university might try to use that as an excuse to say, “Oh, OK, we did this for y’all. Now let’s go back to our regularly scheduled programming.”

Pissang, the student who narrated the new video, said she hoped to eventually feel the same deep sense of loyalty to the University of Wisconsin that her relatives clearly have for their alma mater, Michigan State. But she said she just was not sure that she would ever feel that way.

Pissang: I would like to feel the pride of that, of saying, yeah, I am a Badger. That would be great.

Springsteen: I feel like on this campus, everyone has always been viewed as such an equal. And that’s part of why I picked it. Because this campus, as far as I had known, had basically gotten rid of the minority terms. They were everyone’s an equal. This is what we stand for. We are UW. There was a whole movement about it and that was really cool. And now this happened.

Six days later: ‘A Big Explosion of Racial Tension’

The campus woke up to a message, scrawled in black.

Someone had taken a copy of The Daily Cardinal, a student newspaper, and written a message on it in large block letters: “UW 4 WHITES ONLY!”

The newspaper was taped outside Science Hall, a stately red brick building on campus, and it stunned the first people who saw it. The response from the university was swift.

At 6:46 a.m., the @UWMadison Twitter account wrote:

“UW stands against hate and racism. We’re aware that, last night, a racist message was posted on a building sign outside Science Hall. We are removing this message and any others and @UWMadisonPolice is investigating.”

That morning, more signs were discovered around campus. One read, “UW DON’T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE.” Another read, “I’M TIRED OF HAVING TO TEACH MY TEACHERS.”

Soon, the university released a new statement, which read, in part:

“These posters appear now to be part of a coordinated campaign calling attention to experiences of underrepresented students.”

The Student Inclusion Coalition said it had not orchestrated the campaign. University officials have declined to identify the people involved.

But the campus was shaken and confused once again. Some students argued that whoever posted the signs should be punished for inflaming racial tensions. Others said it was a clumsy protest that was born of frustration. No one claimed responsibility by name, but a group of anonymous students issued a public apology.

Nile Lansana: I think it was poorly executed and poorly worded. I know for me, and it’s not really like this matters, but when I heard about it, I definitely thought that it was a white person doing it. And then when I found out it wasn’t, I was like, OK, I get where you were.

John Lucas, university spokesman: It was not a hate or bias act. It was more an act of student activism or protest.

Lansana: I don’t think that it’s an inaccurate representation of how folks of color are feeling right now. These first two months have been a big explosion of racial tension.

One week later: ‘If You Don’t Like It, Then Leave’

For decades, the University of Wisconsin has been a hotbed of political activism, and in that tradition, members of the Student Inclusion Coalition decided it was time for a protest.

On a Friday in October, they dressed in black and gathered on top of Bascom Hill, a spot with sweeping views of the campus and the granite dome of the State Capitol.

The location was laden with meaning. They stood outside Bascom Hall, the building that houses the university chancellor’s office, near a cherished statue of Abraham Lincoln that, according to campus legend, brings students good luck.

Hundreds of student protesters linked arms and held signs. Dozens more stopped to watch or join in as they walked by on their way to class; but to other students, the demonstration was alarming and difficult to process.

Students representing SIC, in unison: What are we sick of? UW! What are we sick of? UW!

Carson Biber, a freshman business major who is white and from Cedarburg, Wisconsin: When you hear like, oh, ‘Did you hear about those protests on campus?’ I was like, ‘What bad happened now?’

Springsteen: One of my friends, she has a class in Bascom. And she was in there and her lecture hall faces out. And she saw a whole bunch of people out there with signs and things. And I know she told me what they were protesting — I think they were protesting the school. They were bashing our school. And I was like, you go here. Why are you? They’re like, “UW sucks.” And I was like, why are you bashing our college? If you’re a student here, you can leave.

Lori Reesor, a top university official, has an office inside Bascom Hall, in a sunny room with a bowl of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups that she offers to visitors.

Since the homecoming video episode began, Reesor had been at the center of the university’s response. She and the university’s chief diversity officer, Patrick Sims, have met with student leaders and listened to their proposals for how the university could be more welcoming to students of color. Given the nature of a college campus, she said later, it is work that repeats itself.

Reesor, the vice chancellor for student affairs, who is white: With students, every year there’s 8,000 new ones, and it’s all brand-new, and so we have to start it again. They just got here. This is a new day. It’s a reminder of, every day is a new day for somebody on our campus.

In an interview, Sims said the university had tried and failed to attract more African American students in a state where 6.7% of people are black. According to university data, 959 undergraduates in the fall of 2019 identified as African American; some of those students said they were African American as well as Hispanic or another race or ethnicity. Qualified students often choose to leave Wisconsin, Sims said, finding other places more hospitable. (Among the more than 30,000 undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin, about 2,200 are Asian and 1,700 are Hispanic, according to federal data.)

Sims, deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, who is African American: They don’t want to come to Wisconsin. Not because Wisconsin isn’t a great institution, but because the state writ large overall has challenges.

That Friday afternoon, the protest was complete, the crowds had drifted away, and a handful of students who represented SIC gathered in front of Abraham Lincoln.

In Madison, the statue — known simply as Abe — is a watchful, benevolent presence on top of the hill, a landmark and meeting place. After graduation, it is tradition to hoist yourself onto the statue, wearing a cap and gown, and pose for a triumphant picture on Abe’s lap.

Pissang, Wade and a few other students paused in front of Abe. As they snapped a few pictures, they saw an African American teenager and his mother walking toward them. He was a high school junior, checking out the campus.

The teenager had questions. Did they like going to the University of Wisconsin? His mother asked: How’s the diversity?

Kingsley-Reigne Pissang: We just stood there and talked to him, talked to his mom and answered their questions. He was trying to figure out from us what to do, what he should know, trying to understand.

The students tried to answer honestly. They told them there weren’t many African American students at Madison. That many other schools were the same. That he would have to do his research before he made his choice. That despite the difficulty, they had found each other.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2019 The New York Times Company