Wallace Hall is the graphic design building in the village, named after George C. Wallace, who famously said, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In June 2020, Ashley Henton, now an alumna of Auburn, started a petition to get the hall renamed, which has now garnered around 12,000 signatures.
“I emailed Dr. Gogue, and I was like 'here is my petition,' and I think at the time that I had just gotten like 11,000 signatures,” Henton said. “He said, ‘Thank you, Ashley,’ and sent it to the Board of Trustees.”
Henton knew, from then on out, it would be handed off to whatever sub-group handled renaming buildings.
“I kind of like sat by my computer, checking on upcoming minutes for upcoming Board of Trustees meetings to see if it would come up, and it never did, and I checked for months,” she said. “They would rename conference rooms and random rooms after donors, and that was all that happened.”
That held true until this September. On Sept. 10, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the installation of a plaque outside of Wallace Hall to contextualize the name of the building.
The text of the plaque attempts to describe the complexity of Wallace’s legacy including his racist history, apologies for segregationist words and deeds later in his life.
Frances Carlisle, fifth-year student in graphic design, made a second petition after the plaque was announced. As of publication, it has 473 signatures. The resolution and plaque fail to recognize the voices of Auburn students, who through these petitions, have said: This is not what we want.
What this resolution does do very well though — as an unintended side effect — is prove to Auburn students what we have always known. The University would rather be reactive than proactive. The University will hastily sweep up the mess they made instead of trying to prevent it from happening in the first place. Why? It's easier.
The University's attempts at "solving" social issues is something many others are dissatisfied with.
Joelle Woggerman, junior in biochemistry, wrote a letter to the editor in late September in response to the town hall on sexual assault titled, “The town hall on sexual assault proved our worst fears.” And it did. The same way the plaque did.
There are countless other examples from only the past year — a letter titled, “How dedicated is Auburn to its black students?” a letter titled, “Auburn fails to protect students against sexual violence.”
The University will opt for placing a Band-Aid over the crack in the glass instead of trying to use glue. Using glue would be a futile effort to try to repair something broken, but it shows a great deal more effort.
The plaque was the Band-Aid. The town hall, which many called disastrous, was a Band-Aid. They are only meant to appease and silence, they are there to say: Hey, we did something. Isn’t that enough?
Auburn's "actions" align itself with the definition of performative activism, which seeks to capitalize on a movement for social clout or capital rather than supporting the movement and its demands.
Auburn as an institution, can’t be performative activists because we wouldn’t label them as activists at all. But Auburn is performative in every sense of the word — they act only to elicit a response or reaction.
That is the problem.
Every reaction is a performance. There are still pieces of glass on the floor when you hastily swept them up. By not cleaning the true problem, Auburn has left the student body with much shattered glass.
Returning to the first month of the 2021 fall semester, three sexual assault cases were reported in the span of a week. Two protests were held in the following days as a response. A town hall was set the same day a third assault case was reported to students.
This town hall was meant to discuss resources and concerns regarding sexual violence. Auburn Campus Safety and Security, Title IX, Green Dot and Safe Harbor were in attendance, to name a few of the organizations.
Title IX, Green Dot and Safe Harbor are and have been taking steps to listen to the concerns of students, to make their presence and services well-known.
There have also been students working restlessly with these and other organizations on campus to create tangible changes. Some things need equal parts student buy-in and administrative action. But in every case, the administration could always be doing more.
Students will never shut up.
Students will always demand things and work tirelessly to be heard — with the grit of their teeth and sheer determination. And the University needs to be doing more.
Stop giving us flowery words, telling us you’ll do things that most of us don’t even get a glimpse of any progress in the time we’re here.
Bureaucracy is slow, some things take time and that is something that everyone can understand, but stop offering us meaningless gestures. We want to see active steps for tangible change. If not by our graduation date at least by someone's.
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