Minority students demand campus remove rock, claim it’s racist
Maria Wheeler
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Minority students at the University of Wisconsin demanded a 70-ton boulder be removed from campus because they feel it is a tangible reminder of racism in the United States.
During the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was active on the University of Wisconsin campus. The rock was referred to by a “derogatory name” in an article from that time period in the Wisconsin State Journal, which prompted the current upheaval.
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The boulder, named Chamberlin Rock, is located at the top of Observatory Hill and is named after Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist who was president of the University from 1887 to 1892.
“Idiotic Wokeness of the Day Student morons want to prove they can make University morons move a giant rock because once in the 1920s someone said a naughty word You are not serious people,” Jim Hanson tweeted.
University Chancellor Rebecca Blank approved removing Chamberlin Rock in January, but the removal was delayed until the Wisconsin Historical Society signed off on the order since the rock is located within 15 feet (4.6 meters) of a Native American burial site.
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The Black Student Union, led by president Nalah McWhorter, is the group that pushed for the boulder’s relocation, although McWhorter, a senior, said activism on the issue pre-dated her arrival on campus.
“I’m grateful that we have had the opportunity to do this and that the rock will be removed,” she said. “It was our demand, and it was something that we put all the work in for.”
“BLM is mad at a rock so the woke whites are moving it [laughing emojis],” one user tweeted.
The boulder was removed Friday and is being relocated to university-owned land southeast of Madison near Lake Kegonsa.