In response to the news of Glenn Boyce being chosen as the next chancellor of the University of Mississippi, students and faculty have planned protests outside of The Inn at Ole Miss at noon tomorrow. The Inn is the reported location of Boyce’s announcement on Friday.
Camille Calisch, president of UM Solidarity — a progressive student organization — told The Daily Mississippian that they, alongside faculty and Students Against Social Injustice (SASI) are planning the protest. Before the protest, they’ll meet in the Grove at 11 a.m. to make signs and organize.
Calisch said that the entire chancellor search process was corrupt and undemocratic. “To have them expedite this, and have no student input, no faculty input, no worker input, everything that they did was performative,” Calisch said. She added they the groups are protesting both the process of Boyce’s selection and Boyce himself.
“It is an anti-IHL protest. They have total control to replace Boyce,” Calisch said.
Garrett Felber, an associate professor of history at the university, advertised the protest on Twitter. When asked if the protests were about Boyce or the IHL, Felber said that “it’s impossible to separate a corrupt process from a corrupt outcome.”
James Thomas, professor of sociology at the university and faculty adviser to UM Solidarity, tweeted: “I hope the UM faculty Senate seriously considers a vote of no confidence in the IHL. Their complete disregard for their own process merits condemnation.”
A website, fireglennboyce.com, circulated around both Twitter and Facebook Thursday night. The website hosts a change.org petition calling for the university to remove Boyce as chancellor. The petition states: “Dr. Boyce may be a fine man, but the process of searching for, and ultimately selecting, the new Chancellor of the University of Mississippi was drenched in cronyism during a time in which transparency was required.” At the time of publishing, over 400 people have signed the petition.
