This summer, over 1,000 Howard University students received an email about an unknown past-due balance from the university, according to a status update the university posted on Instagram. Widespread student and alumni outcry has turned this localized crisis into a national talking point. This is not the first time Howard students have loudly disagreed with administration.
Internally, criticism online is intense and abundant. However, to what extent is our criticism productive in developing positive change?
Administrators had this to say, “Howard is seriously not as bad as [the students] make it seem on Tiktok and Fizz,” one academic advisor mentioned to me while making conversation about the state of the university. Fizz, for any sweet summer children, is the app where nuance vanishes with anonymous open forum posts by university students.
It goes without saying that Howard students have been subject to a stream of administrative incompetence. But simply being an HBCU that asserts itself as a globally premier institution, according to the Howard University Website, puts a target on our back for negative press.
Seriously, search “Howard University Scandal” and insert a random year to see for yourself how far back the crisis campaign goes.
Janella Laurio, a junior political science major, is a first-generation college student from the Philippines. “We don’t know everybody’s stories, but it still doesn’t help to hear people [slander] Howard as a college decision.” Reflecting on her years on The Yard, Laurio also remarked that Howard is not above criticism, but it’s interesting that a lot of it comes from within.
In my experience, Howard is also being ravaged by something I’d like to call the “Fizz Effect”. It goes something like this: first, a student affected by the poor choices of the administration, habitually, will go on Fizz to voice their problems. They then receive immediate validation online – partially from kindred students, mostly from people who are bored. More people are then incentivized to interact with the post and write about the same subject themselves, producing virality.
Since arriving on campus, rising senior Kelby Hughes dubs himself “the people’s champion”; a walking embodiment of charisma and kindness that prides himself on being a force to uplift his fellow students.
Hughes is an outspoken student leader who consistently acts to address issues that are pressing to students on campus. He asserted that although he doesn’t have Fizz, he’s remained steadfast on using personal social media to represent his own opinion.
In my opinion, Hughes leads by example as a dissenter that is unafraid of thinking outside the box. It shows greater integrity when speaking out with your face and name. If anything, it incentivizes others to do the same thing, unlike anonymous posting which reacts only to outrage.
“Howard is becoming narrow-minded with its own ambitions, which ultimately insults the students. This…is corrupting the university system to its core,” he said.
The anonymous posting on Fizz quells dissent and critical thought, as the more reactionary posts are practically guaranteed to trend. The cycle continues until one of two conclusions is drawn: either Howard is terrible and we should all transfer, or anything we try to do beyond organizing as students is helpless, and we should simply bend to the will of the administration.
People actively repressing their own opinions in favor of joining the bandwagon is referred to as “groupthink,” according to Psychology Today. This can only work against us students. From the outside, we look like bitter complainers who encourage naysayers that prey on the weaknesses of Howard and other HBCUs.
I’m not saying that we should all stop publicly criticizing Howard. Quite the opposite, actually. Having a diploma snatched out of your hands at the last minute, being charged hundreds due to a dining loophole or being in financial delinquency at a moment’s notice should never become normal or comfortable.
However, there was once a time when student activism went beyond public scrutiny and led to organization. Does anyone remember the Blackburn takeover, where students and student leaders protested unfair housing conditions, as reported by The Guardian? Have we lost the passion that is obligatory for making change happen?
Taliana Singleton, a junior nursing major, was looking to transfer out of Howard in July of this year. Currently, she is suspended from the university. She is a founding member of Whose Howard Is It? an online movement demanding answers from the university.
She said she’s received the most pushback, surprisingly, from fellow students and alumni.
“They say ‘keep fighting’ but they don’t join the fight. That pisses me off personally.”
Further, students and student leaders face external pressure not to protest, for fear of facing expulsion.
“Student leaders really only have 3% of deciding power and the students themselves are overly critical,” Singleton said. “But I really do believe there is strength in numbers once we stop fighting each other.”
I think the Fizz effect is a symptom of the problem Singleton seeks to fix: We have a lack of unity among the Howard public, and maybe among the generation at large. We don’t exactly seek to help others at our personal expense.
Still, the remedy to ‘groupthink’ is to start respecting ourselves and each other enough to truly listen. In the case of the financial aid crisis, our fellow Bison were hurting, and the university administration system restrains us from being compassionate.
We are so distanced from our roots as community members that we’ve forgotten how to be a village. It’s not the fault of us students, our parents, the administration or even the trustees. It is the scar of a society that has been hurting since its inception, and the state of the nation has just reopened the wound.
Copy Edited by Daryl R. Thomas Jr.
