UW-La Crosse has pledged to uphold Inclusive Excellence in order to better serve its students. The Diversity and Inclusion tab on the university website states, “Through the implementation of Inclusive Excellence, UW-La Crosse pledges to continue to commit human and financial resources that support an inclusive campus that attracts and retains diverse students…” Recently, however, Hmong students have been receiving a very different message from their university. Without notice, Hmong language courses MLG 204 and 304 were taken off UWL’s online course selection approximately a week prior to the beginning of registration for spring semester.

Dr. Bee Lo has been the instructor for these classes for the past 14 years. Lo first heard of his own classes being put on hiatus when a student sought help from him when they could not find class information online. Confused, the instructor contacted his department chair to investigate. After doing so, he was told the chair was to meet with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts before offering the course. At this point registration was only three days away, with 15 students expressing interest in this course and 3 of whom planning to graduate in the spring. Seven days later, Lo was notified the course would be put on hiatus. Reasons for the drop included inconsistent enrollment and budget, despite having numbers above the standard minimum. “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” said Lo.

Hmong Organization Promoting Education Student Senator Chevana Vang was also surprised by the decision. “It was taken out of the books before we could even register for it,” said Vang. Student Association passed a resolution in support of Hmong learning opportunities at UWL, and the Student Senate of Eau Claire passed one in support as well. However, the university has only agreed to bring back the class in the form of distance learning, which doesn’t sit well with students who were originally interested in these classes. Vang and Maggie Xiong, a fellow member of HOPE, doubt the effectiveness of distance learning for the Hmong language. “I’m going to keep fighting until we get what we want, until Dr. Bee is in that class physically teaching us,” said Xiong, “because that’s how you teach a language course, especially this language.”

“Students of color have to go through this stuff all the time, which is really damaging,” expressed Xiong. “I knew that it was something close to home and that I had to do something about it because, if I didn’t then nobody would.” The third highest population of Hmong people lives in Wisconsin, with La Crosse County hosting one of the largest concentrations in the state. Hmong students deserve better. “Moving forward from this, this has been said a lot, but this is really important to the Hmong community. This is who we are,” believes Vang. Members of HOPE, in addition to those in support of these classes being reinstated, encourage students to join them in the fight at the open forum Thursday evening at 7 in Port O’ Call.