Racialization and Spatialization during the 2015 Demands Movement: A Blueprint for an Anti-racist, Equitable, and Inclusive Higher Education

The Fall of 2015 marked a moment in higher education history that saw a rise in student-activism against racism, specifically following the events at the University of Missouri. In response to the activism of #ConcernedStudent1950 at Mizzou, students across the country issued demands to their college administrators under a national collective known as the Demands Movement. This thesis uses the construct of Spatial Imaginaries as presented by Black Studies Scholar George Lipsitz to uncover how the national imaginary in the U.S., the White Spatial Imaginary, is a problem that is perpetuated within higher education and argues that college administrators must embody a counter-spatial imaginary, the Black Spatial Imaginary, reflected in the demands issued by student-activists in 2015 if they truly hope to make campuses anti-racist, equitable, and inclusive for Students of Color