Today in Red Square, two American University students handed out fliers for a “White Student’s Union DC”, provoking angry e-mails and confused tweets from Hoyas. One of the students eventually told the Voice that they were distributing the fliers for a sociology project, and that they have no intention of starting a White Student’s Union of any kind.

A year ago at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, a similar flier, that later turned out to be a hoax, provoked the university’s associate provost to assure the community that the actual purpose of the faux announcement was to ”draw anti-racist allies together.” It seems that these American University students do not have a similar goal.

The text of the flier is available below (the e-mail address listed is functional, FYI):

We are the White Student’s Union, DC—a new group dedicated to listening, thinking and acting.

We believe that students of caucasian and white racial and European ethnic backgrounds have opinions like everyone else, and that we are often grouped together as a common, minority-hating people. We believe that we can often be judged as “the oppressors” based on the history of our race, and not on our personal thoughts.

We want to know how white students think they are perceived, how other students perceive white students, and what both groups can do to advance our world together, not apart. We are out to celebrate the uniqueness that each culture brings, and the similarities that we can all share.

We are not a hateful, “whites-only” social clique. We are an open, accepting, non-racist groups that wants to voice our own concerns—which are no less valid than those of any other racial or ethnic group—in an equal environment.

Drop us a line at thewsudc@gmail.com. We’re hoping to get this group up and running on several DC campuses soon.

Photo courtesy Jake Sticka