Howard students holding Blackburn defy Noon deadline, defeat eviction attempt after threats of expulsion

Video originally posted to Twitter by Incognitovirgo4 of the scene outside the Blackburn Building 41 sec

On the 12th of October, Howard University students occupied the Blackburn building demanding relief on housing and tuition. The administration claims this began after a "town hall" meeting broke down. The HU Police attempted to remove them at night with a false fire alarm, and students me a Noon Oct 13 deadline to evacuate or face expulsion from the university with an arm-locked blockade that defeated an attempt at forcible eviction.

Howard University is charging students $45,000 a year in tuition while mold and mushrooms are reported growing in student dorms. Two dormatories ( Slowe and Carver ) were simply closed and not replaced, possibly as a way to deter complaints about unsanitary conditions such as dangerous mold. They are being converted to luxury apartments. This is the second time in just three years students at Howard have had to rise in revolt against administration abuses. . Since Howard's administration is threatening students with expulsion, they had best hope students don't add expulsion of the current administration to the posted demands. After all, that was part of the original demands in 2018.

With some of the Howard University adminstration's other activities such as supporting a gentrifying civic association and the ANC against the unhoused, one wonders if the HU administration's next move might be to borrow a bulldozer from Mayor Bowser's tent removal "pilot program." That is the program that led to the violent and failed attempt to remove unhoused tent encampments at the L and M st underpasses. One tent was bulldozed with the occupant inside during that attack.