The swearing-in ceremony of new Associated Students officers last Wednesday degraded from an evening of jazz music and speeches to a raucous, obscenity-laced, name-calling debacle when members of the Progressive Coalition attempted to drown out SF State President Robert A. Corrigan while he administered the oath of office.
As Corrigan took the stage in Jack Adams Hall to make his introductory statement, a group of approximately 25 PC members -- lead by Troy Buckner-Nkrumah -- began clapping in loud unison. Buckner-Nkrumah ran against Kenyan McCarthy as the presidential candidate for the Unified Student Movement.
According to Franz Gwiazdon Julio, spokesman for PC, the group initially wanted a statement read explaining why they wanted elected USM representatives sworn in separate from Struggle members. Julio said after McCarthy and Corrigan refused their request, PC's protest ensued. (SEE SIDEBAR)
When the jeers and clapping grew louder, Corrigan's animosity toward the PC became evident. Although he didn't name any group in particular, it was clear who he was addressing when he said, "students of this campus have behaved rudely and often times like thugs."
Battling the din over his microphone, Corrigan then said that such behavior by previous SF State AS administrations had made other California State University student groups leery of working with SF State student government.
Corrigan gave an example of when members of Unity, a political slate comprised of PC members, attended a CSU Board of Trustees meeting that was discussing remedial education. He said some of those involved insulted each minority trustee.
Julio said he was present at the Long Beach meeting Corrigan talked about.
"We wanted to be heard for more than three minutes," Julio said, of the time allowed for speaking before the board. "I don't know where the thuggery comes in. He should commend students for going down there and taking a position," he said.
When Corrigan began to administer the oath of office, someone in the audience disconnected his microphone. He continued by shouting over the noise while the new members repeated the oath.
Corrigan said to McCarthy, the new AS president, "You must do everything you can to keep the bigots out."
At one point during the swearing in, Buckner-Nkrumah shouted, "I am the president of SF State. I was elected by the students. (McCarthy) is illegitimate."
After Corrigan left the hall, McCarthy took the stage but was heckled by Buckner-Nkrumah and several other PC members who had crowded around him at the podium. McCarthy's written speech was snatched from the podium by one of the PC members.
McCarthy tried to speak to the audience but was interrupted by Buckner-Nkrumah who told McCarthy to give Corrigan "some ass."
Buckner-Nkrumah was apparently alluding to earlier accusations that McCarthy and Corrigan worked together to defeat the Unified Student Movement and to the fact that McCarthy is openly gay.
"If you don't like homosexuals, why don't you come out and just say it?" McCarthy asked Buckner-Nkrumah.
"I got a problem with Uncle Tom bitches," Buckner-Nkrumah replied.
Zokael, a SF State senior who said she favored neither Struggle nor USM, also had a verbal confrontation with Buckner-Nkrumah -- a person she said she had never seen or met before.
"I was there to see the ceremony. I was frustrated because I wanted to hear what Kenyan was saying. I asked him (Buckner-Nkrumah) to sit down, that I wasn't there to listen to him," Zokael said.
According to Zokael, Buckner-Nkrumah said he wasn't talking to her and called her a bitch.
Buckner-Nkrumah was heard saying to Zokael, "Your mom is a bitch," and that she was a white oppressor.
Zokael, who is Iranian, said, "I thought he was going to deck me right there. He was irate, out of control."
She said that as a political figure on campus, Buckner-Nkrumah shouldn't talk to a constituent in such a way.
"It's a question of harassment. If he wants respect, he needs to respect others," Zokael said. "Frankly, I'm glad he's not representing me."
Mark Friedman contributed to this report.