Forty students marched silently from the Danforth University Center to Brookings Hall on Friday afternoon in support of the delivery of STL Students in Solidarity’s list of demands for the administration to improve racial equity on campus.

A small group of students march toward Brookings Hall on Friday. The silent walk preceded a meeting of four student activists and Washington University leaders about ways to improve racial equality on campus.

Sparked by the recent racially charged deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, student activist group STL Students in Solidarity created a list of demands to improve Washington University’s policies and actions regarding racial and economic inequality on campus and in the St. Louis community. Seniors Reuben Riggs, Jacqui Germain and Jonathan Karp and junior Karisa Tavassoli negotiated with Chancellor Mark Wrighton, Provost Holden Thorp and Rob Wild, associate vice chancellor for students, explaining the reasoning behind each of their points for an hour and a half.

The demands identified three areas of focus for the administration to modify: improving the experience of people of color on campus, developing a culturally conscientious campus population and repairing the University’s relationship with the St. Louis community. While students and the administration did not come to any official agreement from the conversation, both sides were optimistic about future discussions. Negotiations will resume in two weeks after the administrations processes through the plausibility of each demand.

“[The administrators] went through the demands, making sure they understood what we were asking them,” Germain said. “We kind of went back and forth a little bit and kind of pushed each other on several points.”

“[STL Students in Solidarity] had a very well thought-through list, and it was one of the best-researched and presented lists that I’ve ever seen in meeting with such groups,” Thorp said. “The meeting was very collaborative. There were a number of things that were good ideas, but we need to think about how much we can do [as a University].”

Chancellor Mark Wrighton greets students at Brookings Hall on Friday. Wrighton, Provost Holden Thorp and Associate Vice Chancellor for Students Rob Wild met with four STL Students in Solidarity leaders for an hour and a half about the latter group’s demands of the administration.

Students and the administration agreed on certain issues, which included improving the Bias Report and Support System, encouraging alumni to invest in social-justice-oriented programs and widening the pipeline to higher education for local students who are attending under-resourced college prep programs. Tavassoli and Germain were not surprised by the University’s quick agreement to some of their demands because they required only minor adjustments to the current system.

“They seemed excited about things that were already in place when asked for expansion,” Tavassoli said. “When we asked for more of an effort to reach out to St. Louis high school students, they were very receptive to that since the infrastructure was already in place. But the administration seemed more hesitant about more politicized, complex demands, which is understandable.”

One of the complex demands on which the administration was hesitant was the creation of required courses related to diversity and social awareness. The demands proposed a revised curriculum that would be more substantive in focusing on diversity along with the social, political, economic and racial realities of St. Louis.

“We have a big fear that the courses will become something like Writing I where everybody takes it but no one takes it seriously,” Riggs said. “We are very wary of the curriculum falling into that trap. Right now, we’re trying to create more engaged systems that recognize the issues that are going on in the world to get students out of the Wash. U. bubble.”

The administration also hesitated on taking a stand with the Quality Policing Initiative, an organization that supports black struggles and discrimination, and agreeing to the demand to increase the black and Latino student populations at Washington University to 10 percent each of the undergraduate student body. According to Thorp, some of what the students requested would be difficult to accomplish quickly, but he said the administration would take each demand seriously and give honest responses on the steps that the University can take moving forward.

“[In two weeks], we’re going to go back to them and tell them what we could do and what we couldn’t do,” Thorp said. “We’re going to do the best we can to demonstrate that we’ve listened and do as much as we can of the things that they’ve requested. It’ll be up to [STL Students in Solidarity] about how we did.”

In the meantime, STL Students in Solidarity plans on building a campaign on campus to raise awareness among Wash. U. students. According to Tavassoli, the group may ask individual students and alumni to sign their name onto the list of demands in order to show administrators that the student body cares about the issues.