On Friday, Oct. 16, Fordham Students United (FSU) enacted a second protest at RamTown, a pep rally designed to amp up students for the beginning basketball season. The protest did not disrupt any aspect of RamTown, and seemed to receive no official response from the department of Public Safety or Fordham Athletics.

According to Monica Cruz, (Fordham College at Rose Hill) FCRH ’16 and the organizer of the silent protest, the goal was not to disrupt the rally. “We knew there was going to be a lot of people here, so we wanted to show the administration that this isn’t an issue that can be swept under the rug and we’re going to continue to organize.”

FSU formed after a previous solidarity march at Homecoming, following the ‘bias crimes’ that took place on the Rose Hill campus early in the 2015-16 academic year. They have been running a social media campaign using the Twitter hashtag “#fordhamspeaksup” to “draw attention to stories of students who have felt oppressed or discriminated against in class or anywhere”  Cruz said.

FSU is building a platform of demands for what they perceive to be injustices in the current administrative system. “The main demand we’re trying to get support on is a new required class in the Core, that would teach about systems of oppression and the history of why social movements like Black Lives Matter form in the first place,” Cruz said.

After the silent protest at RamTown dispersed, Cruz and other students stayed outside McGinley to hand out leaflets on FSU and “#fordhamspeaksup.”