Calls for College President to Resign Because She Doesn’t Support Safe Spaces

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By Kody Fairfield

The President of Northern Arizona University, Rita Cheng, has sparked protests and a campus walkout by telling students they had to confront ideas they don’t like rather than hide from them in, reports Heat Street.

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According to Heat Street, the university’s Student Action Coalition (SAC) attacked Dr Cheng’s leadership and demanded that she quit after a tense confrontation at a Q&A session.

According to Arizona’s 12News channel, the incident came to a head with a question from a sophomore, who asked:

How can you promote safe spaces if you don’t take action in situations of injustice such as last week when we had the preacher on campus and he was promoting hate speech against marginalized students? As well as, not speaking out against racist incidents like blackface two months ago by student workers followed by no reform and no repercussions?

Dr. Cheng responded explaining the University’s job is to develop skills to confront ideas they do not agree with, and being coddled in safe spaces do not do that.

As a university professor, I’m not sure I have any support at all for safe space. I think that you as a student have to develop the skills to be successful in this world and that we need to provide you with the opportunity for discourse and debate and dialogue and academic inquiry, and I’m not sure that that is correlated with the notion of safe space as I’ve seen that.

Her comments led to pro-safe space students to walk out of the meeting, according to Heat Street. The students eventually released a peeved statement on the situation.

Student Action Coalition’s statement: (12News)

The NAU Student Action Coalition is composed of many student groups and various individuals who are being directly impacted by a range of issues highlighted at the forum on Wednesday. The NAU community invests a lot of time, money, and energy in this experience and, because of failed leadership, we are not getting a return on our investment. President Cheng’s answers at the forum were insufficient and if she’s not ready or willing to engage in these serious conversations and more importantly work towards solutions, then we do feel her resignation is necessary and would want a university President who works to provide the purpose of higher education, which is to enrich the lives of many people, students, faculty, staff and the larger Flagstaff community. We were guaranteed access, quality and excellence in our higher education student experiences and far too many students are experiencing the exact opposite. 

“That’s what we’re doing and safe spaces are not about that. It’s about certain groups being targeted and nothing is being done about it,” said NAU senior Nina Wilson after walking out of the forum.

Some students claimed Cheng only cared about situations when they were in her financial interest, reported 12News.

“That’s why we get the like gay campus because we’re a marketing technique, but she doesn’t care about our safety,” one NAU SAC organizer of five years said.

Dr. Cheng responded to the students saying she’d meet with students who don’t like her style – but offered no indication that she is going anywhere, explained Heat Street.

NAU SAC organizers said they plan to hold more demonstrations in the near future in hopes of bringing about the changes they seek, according to 12News.

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