HISTORY
The University of Georgia is the largest university in Georgia. The demographics of UGA are
0.1% American Indian/Alaskan Native
10.7% Asian, 7.6% Black/African-American
6.6% Hispanic/Latino
4.2% Multi-race (not Hispanic/Latino)
0.1% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
69.8% White
1.0% Unknown.
No race other than white is in double digits. The university is almost 70 percent white. It has been like this throughout the history of the college. UGA has a serious problem with how they deal with racial issues. There was an incident in early September that helped show this, when the UGA’s Hispanic Student Association Zoom meeting was interrupted by several white men who yelled expletives and racial slurs, mocked the Spanish language and showed an explicit photo on the group’s video screen, according to Yahoo.com.
Many of the students in the Zoom call were traumatized, and wanted the University to do something about it. UGA’s official response said: “In the case of the “Zoom-bombing” of the Hispanic Student Association meeting, UGA’s Student Affairs office said it has been unable to determine who crashed the video meeting because software companies such as Zoom do not share internet addresses of those using their platforms.”
This is upsetting because there was no real punishment for these actions. The University claims that they are concerned about the safety of their students, and they have recently required waiting rooms to be used on UGA Zooms, but it is too little, too late.
Another example comes from former UGA football player Otis Reese. He talked about his experiences on and off campus in Athens. He explained an incident he experienced in the football locker room with fellow players:
“A group of white classmates mocked slavery and pretended to whip each other,” he added. “None of those things were ever addressed by the coaches at UGA. There was literally nobody to speak to about these types of things without having fear of losing your position on the team,” per WSAV.
UGA is still allowing these targeted and racist actions to continue. It has been proven that they choose to ignore the issues with the belief that they will simply go away. Sadly this is not the case.