Students at Howard University are on their second week of protest after accusing university administrators of dismissing their reports of mold, roaches, mice, and housing shortages on campus.
Members of the historically black university have organized in tents outside of campus and in sleeping bags inside the social hub and the university center.
On social media, students have said the issues have been persistent for years and improvements are long overdue.
They've shared videos of the unsafe living condition in the dorms, showing cockroaches in the showers, walls covered with mold, mice skittering across dorm rooms, and flooding from burst pipes.
On social media, students have said the issues at Howard University have been persistent for years and are long overdue. They've shared videos of the unsafe living condition in the dorms, showing cockroaches in the showers, walls with mold, mice making their way inside dorm rooms, and floodings from burst pipes
Members of the historically black university have organized in tents outside of campus and in sleeping bags inside the social hub and the university center
Students have said the university has largely ignored their calls for action
Twitter user @MKDominique, a Howard student, shared a video of what she claimed to be her dorm in 2019, in which a mouse could be seen making its way inside a closet
'My freshman year ('19-'20) Howard had us living in what was supposed to be a newly renovated dorm that was actually under construction the entire time we were there. I recorded this video of ONE of the mice that got into our room,' a student tweeted
Protesters said the university has largely ignored their pleas. They are demanding a town hall meeting with the university's president before October ends, the release of a housing plan that addresses their concerns, and the appointment of students to the board of trustees.
Jaelan Trapp, a senior at Howard, told CBS he experienced the same issues during his freshman year. Trapp now lives off-campus, as the university only secures dorms to freshman and sophomores, but is supporting the protest.
'A lot of the dorms have their own issues between mold in the dorm and being different infestations of whatever different creatures like rats and roaches in the dorms. Sometimes the dorms don't have heating, sometimes the pipes are bursting,' Trapp told the outlet.
Mario Beatty, an associate professor of Afro-American studies at the university, shared on Twitter that the mold had affected one of his students
Another student claimed the university had refused to relocate her and her roomates even when she slipped and fell because her doorm was flooded
Protesters said the university has largely ignored the infestation, flooding, and mold in dorms
