EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer that submitted this letter requested anonymity.
I am one of many people of Mexican descent who make up the Auburn community as faculty, employees, students, and campus workers. An individual walked onto our campus this weekend and publicly cheered the notion of my murder.
For me, this is not some abstract gesture or some teachable moment about university values. This is a very real threat of ongoing violence and one which the university administration has insufficiently addressed.
On Jan. 24, a group of Auburn community members joined nationwide protests against ICE on Toomer’s Corner. Auburn basketball fans also arrived at Toomer’s Corner to celebrate their win. Certain fans hurled insults at the protesters, and one man was caught on video shouting, “All the Mexicans out! All the Mexicans out! Shoot them all!”
On Jan. 26, the Auburn community received an email from President Christopher Roberts and Vice President M. Kevin Robinson reaffirming Auburn’s “unwavering commitment to a campus environment grounded in respect, responsibility and care for one another.”
The email mentioned “reports of language that promotes or glorifies violence” without noting the specifics of the incident or who had been targeted. The e-mail also did not include any information about whether the individual in the video was under investigation and whether disciplinary or police action would be pursued.
I write this letter to underscore that Mexicans and people of Mexican descent are Auburn University undergraduate students, dorm residents, graduate researchers, course instructors, professors, administrators, janitors, food servers, and more — all of whom deserve to feel safe at their place of employment.
Additionally, the university depends on the unrecognized labor of many immigrant workers, including Mexicans. Game day, that most hallowed of Auburn traditions, would not exist without them; immigrant workers transform the campus every Friday on home game weekends and dismantle it for classes by Monday morning.
We are not a vague entity existing on the fringes of this town. We are not a political talking point. We are people sharing this university space with you, moving through its buildings, sharing our learning, writing term papers, ordering a sandwich in the cafeteria. We have helped build Auburn and we continue to make it what it is, even as people in the community try to erase us.
By not specifically addressing what took place on Saturday and the harm that it does to people of Mexican descent on our campus, President Roberts and his administration frame this event not as a real act of violence, but as an abstract learning opportunity for the rest of the community, simply an occasion to affirm the Auburn Creed while changing nothing.
I suspect this is because many people in Auburn don’t want to recognize the obvious: that our campus is, in fact, made up of many people of every race, creed, and color; that language about “respect, responsibility, and care” means nothing if Mexican students and workers are confronted, insulted, and threatened on the basis of their race and if their assailants suffer no consequences.
Professor Kate Craig has already written a Plainsman letter telling President Roberts to maintain his own commitment to campus safety. I worry for my safety when an individual’s call for violence against me is not treated with the severity it mobilizes.
The university must acknowledge what has occurred and, instead of making wishful generalities about our community values, make those values actionable on behalf of all its community members. Auburn won’t be those things unless it does them.
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