FORT COLLINS — While placing the current political and racial climates in the spotlight, citizens across the country are assuring their voices are heard following the brutal slaying of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Amid the nationwide protests for justice and equality, the Colorado State athletic department took matters into its own hands upon introducing the Together Initiative on Friday to assist the nation’s strive for equality.
“It can’t be just about today,” CSU vice president of student affairs Albert Bimper said in a video regarding the initiative. “It must be about every day together.”
CSU’s recently released plan of action stresses the importance of remaining unified to “drive change” toward all individuals achieving social justice. With this belief in mind, the athletic department listed 21 items in which it “believes are essential to bringing about the change we all want to see” in the world.
Notable objectives listed include participating in public meetings, voting in elections, arranging discussions concerning “systemic injustices,” organizing conversations with law enforcement officials, meeting with political figures to converse about “the structural design of our criminal justice system” as well as simply accepting that each individual “cannot play the same role in our collective revolution for change.”
Prominent members of the CSU community such as university president Joyce McConnell, director of athletics Joe Parker and plenty of Rams’ head coaches endorsed the initiative.
Above all, Colorado State as a whole is guaranteeing that its progressive stance on racial equality is known and that it wholeheartedly stands by those who have suffered discrimination.
“I understand that I will never understand,” the CSU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee stated within the initiative document. “However, I stand with you, I hear you, I see you, and I will fight with you.”
