American University Protest, September 28, 2005, by Elisabeth Shoop
From MemoryArchive
Who: American University Students What: Anti-Ben Ladner Protest When: September 28, 2005 Where: American University
Oh, how presidents love to cause scandals. When the Fall 2005 semester started at American University, my alma mater, we were without a school president. Benjamin Ladner, who had been president since 1994, was suspended; and with good reason. There were allegations made that he had stolen around $500,000 of University money.
As the investigation continued, it became more apparent that Ladner had “misused” university money. The Washington Post covered the story extensively, as well as local news and the student newspaper, the Eagle. Many of the students were apathetic, but some of us, myself included were downright angry. Ladner was making over $800,000 a year; his wife received a salary of $80,000 a year for “volunteering,” and he had used almost $500,000 of students’ money to pay for his son’s engagement party, a personal chef, and a first class ticket to Nigeria, among other things. I don’t know about other students, but my parents combined don’t make much more than $80,000 a year. I didn’t understand how someone could be so greedy.
September 28, 2005 marked a turning point in the Ladner investigation. That evening a meeting of the Board of Trustees was meeting to discuss the situation. A handful of students organized a protest rally during the same time. When I arrived at the rally on the quad, just after 5pm, there was already a crowd of what I heard ended up being around 500 people. There were a few speakers, and then we marched to the street below the building where the meeting was taking place. We were shouting slogans like “Show me the money!” and holding signs with equally witty phrases.
But that is when the planned rally ended. Someone, no one knows who, came up with the idea to go upstairs and chant outside the meeting. So we did. I, along with a few hundred people, bounded up the stairs to surround both exits to the room. Our shouting must have disrupted the meeting, because a vice president or someone came out and told us that if we could be quiet, they would let 20 people inside the meeting. I was not one of those people, so I stayed outside.
Then the waiting began. Slowly, people began to trickle off, but since I had nothing better to do at the time, I decided to stick it out, along with a few other dedicated protesters and the media crews. The student delegation was in there over an hour, so I chatted with the cameramen and journalists, and text messaged updates to my friends who were in class.
Around 7 or so, the board members began to leave. At first, we barricaded the parking garage to prevent the members from leaving until they told us if they were going to vote to impeach Ladner. After the first few, however, Public Safety came and told us to stop. So about 30 or so students went down to the amphitheatre to talk to the students who had gone in. At first, the discussion was constructive, but it began to fall apart after the anarchists started arguing with the issue related protestors. So, at about 8pm, I left.
This was the first major protest rally that I had ever attended, and it really was a lot of fun. We did get a few things accomplished: Ladner was asked to resign, the board of trustees was restructured, and the students were given a little more recognition. Less than a month later, however, most of the interest had died down and the student population had returned to their former apathetic state. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
