Iowa State’s multicultural groups joined forces inside Beardshear Hall Monday afternoon to show their support of the students at the University of Missouri in the ISU Supports Mizzou protest.

In attempt to centralize the issues at hand to Iowa State, students rallied in Beardshear Hall to stand in solidarity with Mizzou.

Holding signs stating things like, “Black lives matter” and “#Solidarity,” protesters listened to what their classmates and professors had to say, occasionally erupting in chants and applause.

Daria Hicks, freshman in electrical engineering, was the first to speak. Hicks began the first chant, “ISU supports Mizzou.” The following speaker asked the crowd to raise their hands if they had been the victim of racism, with dozens of hands going into the air.

Thoughts returned to an incident earlier this fall when Jovani Rubio, present at the protest, had his sign ripped at the Cy-Hawk tailgate. Even more recently a statue of George Washington Carver was vandalized. The statue was found to have been covered in shaving cream last Friday, Nov. 13.

Similar to the situation at Mizzou, students are upset with the administrations efforts. 

“[The university] continues to live on an approximately 120-year-old legacy of their first African American student,” Maurice Washington, graduate student in agriculture and biosystems engineering, said of Carver. “What else have they done? What else are they doing?”

Washington called for a system to be put in place that would allow students to report racial adversity. Following Washington’s speech was another chant, “no justice, no peace.”

Also upsetting to the crowd was the absence of University President Steven Leath, who is currently out of town at an Association of Public and Land-grant Universities conference, and Student Government President Dan Breitbarth, who was also out of town at the time of the protest.

Breitbarth said he wasn’t informed of the protest until 3 p.m. Monday, at which point he was already out of Ames. He also said at least six members of Student Government were present and said, 

“I wish I could have been there. I understand if you’re upset with me that I wasn’t there, but we did have members there. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, I would encourage students to reach out and come talk to me. I have an open door policy.”

“They should be ashamed,” one student said. His statements were followed by chants of “Leath must go.”

The following speaker cited the pain he saw on the faces in the crowd, which filled the entrance and had overflow on the following floor. He urged all students of color to come together and make a statement, following his speech the crowd burst into another chant, “we will fight for our rights.”

Maria Alcivar, graduate student in human development and family development, spoke of demands students have made for administration.

“We may not get that, we may not, and that might be something that we work for for many years, but at least we need to get our voices heard,” Alcivar said. “We can’t keep waiting, it’s just a fact.”

Concerns and anger with the social media application Yik Yak were raised when during the event a yak was posted stating, “ISU doesn’t support Mizzou.”