Students at Robert Morris University created a petition this week that urges administrators to remove the word “freedom” from the university’s student ID card over because it is offensive. The university has caved to the students, announcing it will redesign the cards removing the word freedom.
According to a report by Campus Reform, students at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are calling for the removal of the word “freedom” from the university’s student ID card over the institution’s connection to slavery.
This week, in response to the petition, administrators announced that they will remove the word “Freedom” from the identification cards.
The petition, which was only signed by 130 people, claims that the “Freedom Cards” make black students feel “dehumanized.” The petition also argues that it is inappropriate for the university to suggest that the identification cards grant students their “freedom” on campus.
Our student IDs are currently named, “Freedom Cards.” This poorly named form of identification has made minority students (black students in particular) feel like we are being dehumanized. Gifting us with IDs that grant us our “freedom” is of extremely poor taste. Especially coming from a University that is named after a slave owner. It is unacceptable to make light of the emancipation of an entire demographic that was and still is feeling the effects of slavery. Minority students should not have to be reminded of that every time they pick up their IDs. With that being said, we would like to rename our Freedom Cards to something that is not insensitive.
On Tuesday, Jonathan Potts, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations at RMU, announced that administrators have voted to remove the word “Freedom” from the identification cards.
“We had already been planning to redesign and rename our student, faculty, and staff identification cards to make them more widely recognized on campus and more easily communicate their purpose,” Potts said in a short statement.
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