LSU and its students have changed substantially over the past four years.
My senior year of high school, I told my mother I didn’t think racism, sexism or homophobia existed in my generation. Of course, there were still racist, sexist and homophobic people in America, but they were all older and ignorant to the strides millennials had taken toward true equality. Nobody my age could possibly still be clinging to ancient stereotypes about women or minorities.
A month into my freshman year, I called my mom and admitted that I had been devastatingly wrong about my generation.
Both my high school and my hometown were filled with liberal, open-minded people who eagerly learned about the world around them and paid special attention to the struggles minorities face in this country. I assumed LSU and Baton Rouge would be the same.
I was wrong.
At this school, I have watched racist stereotypes perpetuate themselves on campus in a way that I wouldn’t have thought my fellow millennials were capable of. I have seen women and members of the LGBT community face the kind of discrimination that can only be sustained by willful ignorance.
At the end of my junior year, I couldn’t wait to finish my last year of college so I could escape this school forever. I watched graduating friends post Facebook statuses about how much they were going to miss LSU and rolled my eyes — there wasn’t a single thing I was going to miss about this place.
I scoffed at the closing words of the alma mater. I was not going to let my worth in life be this community’s worth. The spirit of hatefulness and ignorance that I witnessed on this campus would not live on within me.
But over the course of this year, I have watched LSU change.
Minority communities on campus have reached their boiling points and are fed up with the way they’ve been treated at this school. People are making sure their voices are heard, regardless of whether LSU wants to listen.
Students have organized demonstrations, rallies and marches to raise awareness of the issues minority communities face. Administration members have been called out for allowing people who conserve stereotypes to speak on campus. Campaigns have been waged against traditions that some members of the LSU community cling to, despite the inherent racism and sexism of those traditions.
Most surprisingly, I have received an outpouring of support from my fellow students for writing honestly about the problems this student body has.
When I began writing for The Daily Reveille, I expected to receive nothing but vitriolic and reductionist responses to my opinions. I was ready for them. I would be leaving LSU at the end of the semester, and my last acts as a student would be to defy the status quo and shake the foundations of a community I had come to deeply resent during my time here.
I did receive many hateful messages for the things I wrote. Most of them came from anonymous commenters, but some were coming from people that I had been in close-knit organizations with — people I previously considered friends.
But that hate never left its online sphere. On campus, I was met with such a substantial amount of support that it stunned me. Every time I introduced myself as the opinion writer that everyone hated, I expected people to shun me like the pariah I had purposely made myself out to be. Instead, students told me they appreciated my writing and enjoyed seeing articles that called out discrimination on campus and throughout Louisiana.
LSU is changing. The community is evolving. More people are joining minority communities in solidarity. These groups no longer have to face the rest of LSU alone and more people are supporting causes that have been dismissed in the past.
Through four years, this campus has become a more welcoming place for those who want to show LSU students that they must evolve past their own biased ideals. It is more activist-friendly, more open to demonstrations and more willing to let minority voices be heard.
In the coming years, this evolution will gain momentum. Students will be able to speak louder and louder, until their voices drown out old and ignorant stereotypes.
I’m going to miss standing in solidarity with my fellow students against injustices and discrimination. I’m going to miss the demonstrations in the Quad, the conversations about how to amend people’s preconceived notions of minorities and the culture of change that I have watched grow during the last year.
Revolution is coming to LSU. This campus cannot and will not remain the way it is.
I’m sad this revolution didn’t occur during my time here. But I’m glad I will leave LSU knowing that students constantly will be pushing for change and won’t stop until that change comes to LSU, Baton Rouge and the entire state of Louisiana.
I now embrace the closing words of the alma mater. Even after graduating, I will continue to fight for equality on this campus in any way I can. I will carry the fierce will of activism I have watched bloom over the last year everywhere I go.
I thought I wouldn’t miss LSU. I was wrong.
Logan Anderson is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Houston, Texas. You can reach her on Twitter @LoganD_Anderson.