UNR groundbreaking ceremony met with protest of alleged faculty rape, sex trafficking

Описание: University of Nevada, Reno officials on Thursday prepared to kick off the institution’s 150th anniversary with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new business building. The gathering was met with several dozen protesters, mostly students, chanting, “Sexual violence is a crime!”

The protesters lined Ninth Street as a backdrop to the ceremony.

“This whole day will be memorialized in the time capsule,” UNR President Brian Sandoval said, pointing toward the protesters at Virginia and Ninth Streets in front of the campus. “I decided to write a letter to the president 50 years from now, and I’m going to document this day because a lot of things have happened here, and it’s really important to inform that future president and the students then about what happened here today.”

Students who led the demonstration said they’re fed up with the university's lack of response and transparency with recent rape, sexual assault and discrimination complaints. Jamie, a freshman who said they did not want to use a last name, said more accountability is needed at UNR.

“Hearing this makes me wonder how they could possibly claim that they are protecting students from this if they are not even willing to admit that they failed to protect faculty,” the student said.

UNR President Brian Sandoval spoke with the demonstrators for close to 10 minutes before the official ceremony, at times trying to be heard over shouts of, “No excuse for violent men.”

Sandoval told This Is Reno he was proud of the university’s students.

“It’s important that they have a voice,” he said. “I’ve spoken with student leadership even this morning and want to chat with them. We’re going to work on this together.”

The group of students and concerned community members have organized as “Stand With Fei Fei,” referencing Fei Fei Fan, a mechanical engineering faculty member who launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover legal costs for a lawsuit against the university alleging rape, sexual slavery and misconduct she said were perpetrated by another tenured faculty member and from which she says the university benefitted.

The students shouted: “Say her name! Fei Fei Fan!”