By ELIZABETH BRUMLEY/Murphy News Service

Hundreds of demonstrators withstood the rain and wind Thursday night during the Stance of Solidarity demonstration outside of Coffman Memorial Union on the University of Minnesota campus, as student groups called on the U administration to address a list of concerns relating to racial equality and fairness.

The Black Student Union (BSU)  staged the demonstration, using as a catalyst the recent events at the University of Missouri — where the university’s president and chancellor resigned under pressure earlier this week after various student groups, including the school’s African-American football players, cited them for failing to adequately address concerns of racial discrimination on the Columbia, Missouri, campus.

BSU was joined by other groups, including Chicano/a Studies, the Multicultural Association, Whose Diversity? and the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group. BSU announced a list of six demands for consideration by the U’s administration.

The list of demands provided by the BSU includes:

“1. Cluster hire of faculty of color as per the proposal put forth in 2014 by the Consortium for the Study of Race, Indignity, Gender and Sexuality (RIGS).
2. Permeating the spaces of the cultural centers for student groups located on the second floor of Coffman.
3. Establish a program that recruits and increases high school students from working-class neighborhoods of color within the Twin Cities.
4. Permeating all of the different ethnic studies departments at the U of M
5. Require all students to take at least one class offered in one of the three ethnic studies departments (African American and African Studies, Chicano and Latino Studies, American Indian Studies) or the Asian American Studies Program.
6. Requiring that the student who serve on the student fees committees are students selected from the different cultural centers student groups on the second floor of Coffman.”

Reporter Elizabeth Brumley is studying Journalism at the University of Minnesota.