While people at every level are fighting for policy changes that promote diversity and inclusion, students working for Indiana University’s Division of Student Affairs believe that change starts with individuals.

The students ready to fuel that change are IU senior, Kandace Rippy, and freshman, Larry McDowell. 

Rippy hopes that her legacy will be one that brings the IU community together in a new way. 

“I’ve always noticed that a lot of students don’t collaborate with other students or other student groups. For example, maybe black students only stay around black students or  with the Black Student Union,” Rippy said. 

“We don’t see anyone hanging out outside of their groups. It’s kind of this polarized thing,’ McDowell added, ‘When people from other smaller minority groups do come to IU, [staying within their group] is a safe place.” 

Rippy and McDowell’s solution was hosting the first “Unity Walk: IU is One” event. 

“Walks are extremely effective in bringing people together. Any time a walk happens, people are able to separate all of those smaller details that they aren’t normally able to separate,” McDowell said. 

“It’s basically just a walk celebrating the differences that we have as people, but we all come together as IU students,” Rippy said. 

The walk started in Dunn Meadow with an hour of fellowship, snacks, and poster decorating and ended at Showalter Fountain with speeches from the organizers, and a performance from the Essence dance team. The main focus being “IU is One”.

“IU is one regardless of if you’re a black student, white student, Asian student, gay, straight. Whatever you are, you’re an IU student, and everything else falls under that,” McDowell said. 

This year, IU has faced record-high reports of sexual assaults and anti-Semitism on campus. On top of that some students, like Rippy, still feel the sting of racist acts that took place at IU years ago. 

She recalled an instance where fliers promoting the Ku Klux Klan were found on campus.

“As a black person and someone who knows the history of the Ku Klux Klan, I was very very uncomfortable and very, very hesitant on whether or not I wanted to stay here,” Rippy said.

Instead of leaving, those events made Rippy want to stick around Bloomington and fight the hate.

“Those instances make me want to push harder to better the race relationships we have here, not only on this campus, but in this city,” Rippy said. 

Ultimately, Rippy and McDowell want IU to be a place where everyone can feel at home.

 “I just want to break away from the racism and anti-Semitism and other ‘ism’s’ that happen here on this campus and make it a campus that is inclusive for everyone,” Rippy said. 

While this may be the first Unity Walk, McDowell does not plan on it being the last. In fact, his hope is that the event will bring together all nine IU campuses. 

“We have over 110,000 students. This is so much power that we have. Change-makers, leaders, thought-leaders,’ McDowell said, ‘But it has to be the unity part. It has to be we’re all there for each other. It has to be I support you no matter if I agree with exactly what you’re doing, or if I agree with the fact that you’re an IU student and I love you.”