A student leader at the University of Houston Texas has been forced to attend a three-day diversity workshop and suspended from the Student Government Association for 50 days — where she served at Vice President — for simply saying that “All Lives Matter” on her Facebook page.
Only days after the targeted shooting that killed five police officers in Dallas, Rohini Sethi, VP of the Student Body, posted a note on her personal page which read: “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter.”
As you can imagine, the comment didn’t go down well.
The post has since been deleted, but screenshots of it were collected and widely shared on social media by angry students asking for Sethi’s removal from student government, along with with the hashtag #removerohini.
The crux of the issue is a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between supporters of “Black Lives Matter” and those who see the BLM mantra as an “anti-white” or “divisive” statement and affirm that “All Lives Matter.”
Wesley Okereke, a psychology senior at University of Houston, was one of those who found Rohini’s statement hurtful. Saying “Forget #BlackLivesMatter,” she said, was “a slap in the face to the entire student body.”
Accounting senior Alexis Sanders, a black woman, equally felt that Sethi could not fully represent the study body — the second most diverse in the nation — and therefore, shouldn’t be in student government.
“Her comment was an insensitive, disgusting, thoughtless, and blatantly disrespectful remark,” Sanders said. “Her comment proved she lacks sympathy for her constituents.”
I'll be honored when you're impeached. #RemoveRohini https://t.co/a7fqj8NGs5
— West Nile (@__WesleySnipes) July 11, 2016
Those black lives that were belittled are the same black lives that MADE your athletics and academics what it is today. #RemoveRohini
— Mama Shea Butter (@KingErin_) July 12, 2016
Sethi apologized and clarified her comments soon after, explaining that as Vice President of the student body, she felt that she was elected to represent all students — regardless of their ethnicity or skin color — and should advocate for all of them.
“Visually we are black, white, tan, and a hundred shades between but we are all human, thus I believe that all lives matter,” she said. “Let’s all come together through conversations to reach unity.”
She then met with black student leaders, but the Black Student Union didn’t seem to think Sethi’s non-apology was enough and kept pushing for her removal.
Rohini's excuse for an "apology" is completely unacceptable.
— Black Student Union (@bsu_uh) July 12, 2016
A full impeachment would have been a complicated affair, however, as it would have required 3/4 of the student senate to agree to the proceedings.
Instead, the student senate chose to pass a special bill granting SGA president Shane Smith one-time powers to determine Sethi’s sanctions.
Emboldened by the measure, Smith went full went speech-police on her, requesting that she receive a 50-day suspension and that she must attend a three-day diversity workshop as well as three cultural events per month. She will also have to write a reflection letter and give a public presentation in the fall in front of the student senate.
“Since her original post, I have not felt that she has understood or respected how her actions have affected the people around her, as well as the reputation of SGA and the university,” Smith said in a statement.
Five more days of suspension were added between the Senate Meeting and the sanctions’ announcement, according to the Daily Cougar.
