#RolandMartinUnfiltered - All Hell Broke Loose! Drama At Benedict College Over Trump's Visit To The HBCU

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. From Washington, D.C., where the Astros won three in a row. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Congratulations, Roland. Yeah, we did it. We did it. We on our way now.

Starting point is 00:00:22 Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. A lot of trash being talked last week by certain people. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Whole lot of trash. Yeah. Uh-huh. Now all of a sudden, oh, now when folks down three-two. Uh-huh. Now they real quiet. That's right. Huggy Lowdown and Witness Protection Program

Starting point is 00:00:46 That was his Halloween costume Tom Jordan look like A snitch now Trying to switch sides Look like Dre from Power No stay where you are All you Astros doubters. Now, yeah, uh-huh.

Starting point is 00:01:07 I want to hear nothing. That's right. And after tomorrow night... You can compare me to Dre. I'm good. And Dre is good, too. Dre gonna be good next episode. Just letting you know. Alright, let's get right to it. Hey, Sybil. Congratulations,

Starting point is 00:01:24 bro. Guys, look quiet. I understand because they swept y'all behind. All right. Over the weekend, there was drama, lots of drama in South Carolina at Benedict College where there was a bipartisan presidential forum. Ten Democratic candidates showed up in addition to Donald Trump. It was put on by the 2020 Bipartisan Justice Center. Man all hail broke loose.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Donald Trump spoke on Friday, was given an award, was not asked questions. But then Senator Kamala Harris, she pulled out of the event, citing that award and his comments on criminal justice, threatened to hold her own event. Then we hear that the 2020 Bipartisan Justice Center was actually dropped as the sponsor. All kind of stuff. So I said, well, let's call Dr. Rosalyn Artis. She, of course, the president of Benedict College. And so, Doc, good morning. How are you doing?

Starting point is 00:02:18 Good morning. I'm well, thank you. How are you? So it was quite eventful weekend for you at Benedict College. Now, so this presidential form wasn weekend for you at Benedict College. Now, so this presidential forum, was it put on by Benedict College in conjunction with the 2020 Bipartisan Justice Center? Or was the Justice Center in charge of everything, inviting candidates, the format, all that sort of stuff? The latter, Benedict College, served as a host site for the 2020 Bipartisan Justice Forum, which was coordinated. Invitations extended.

Starting point is 00:02:48 The details ironed out by the 2020 Justice Forum. So Trump spoke, but he did not take any questions, whereas all the other candidates actually were asked questions. And so Benedict College had no involvement in that. That was the 2020 Bip 2020 bipartisan Justice Center plan? That is correct. And he was originally, of course, invited as a participant in the bipartisan forum, where he would have, of course, had the same format as every other candidate. However, he declared the visit an official White House visit, which, of course, immediately shifted the landscape. So he's a declared candidate. One of the things that took place if he had come to the NAACP this summer was Derek Johnson said, look, you're a declared candidate, so therefore you should have to answer questions

Starting point is 00:03:37 just like anyone else. Do you know if the other Republicans who are running, Mark Sanford, Governor Weld, or even Joe Walsh, were they invited by the 2020 bipartisan Senate? I do not know. Now, we also heard, we also, folks were talking on social media that students were locked down. They had to stay in their dormitories. And so can you explain exactly what happened there? Sure. Once the president declared his visit to South Carolina, an official White House visit, of course, the Secret Service became engaged. They descended on the campus almost immediately. Typically, the lead time for a visit is about two weeks to be the advance look. In this instance, it was six days.

Starting point is 00:04:22 And so the Secret Service, of course, developed a safety plan, a protocol. You might imagine that there were lots of details worked out. Among them was the passage of the motorcade through the campus and, of course, the securing of POTUS. Students were advised by me, based on the protocols established by the Secret Service, that for the period of time that the motorcade entered the campus until he departed the campus, there would be a shelter in place, i.e. wherever you are is where you'll stay. If you're in the library, if you're in your dormitory, wherever that is, you'll need to stay. There would not be people able to walk all over the campus because they simply could not secure the perimeter completely. And so I spoke with the students on Wednesday and explained to them what would be occurring,

Starting point is 00:05:09 that from about 2 to 4 p.m. there would be a shelter in place on the campus, and that was effective for students, faculty, and staff, and I might add, was the exact same protocol in place when President Obama came to Benedict three years ago. Now, another report said only nine Benedict students were able to go to the event on Friday. And then that changed. And that changed. What happened there? So we were initially advised that there would be about 10 seats that were absolutely held

Starting point is 00:05:41 for Benedict students. Certainly Benedict students who desire to attend were able to go online and register or manifest their desire by going online and registering or notifying the college. Ten students were identified. They were our Burroughs Scholars. The reason those ten students were selected is because Tyrone Adam Burroughs, the benefactor of the Burroughs Scholars Program, was going to be on program that day and asked that his scholars be in place. Those 10 students were invited. Seven of the 10 actually attended.

Starting point is 00:06:13 One was running track for Benedict College, which, by the way, we won the SEAC Championship on Friday. One was doing ROTC drills, and one had in fact graduated. And so seven of the ten original Baro scholars actually were placed. I would note, however, that an additional 25 Benedict students were in fact in the auditorium because I counted them personally that day. Those students exercised their own discretion and judgment and chose to attend the speech and simply walked in and took their seat. So we actually have 32 Benedict students on hand, which is a little more than 10% of the audience, which was comprised of a whopping 267 seats.

Starting point is 00:06:50 So when Senator Kamala Harris drops out and then things got switched around, when that took place, whose decision was it to say, no, we're not going to take charge of this as a result of this controversy? So it was a joint decision made between the 2020 Justice Forum and Benedict College. Obviously, Kamala Harris is very, very important to this discussion because of her status as an HBCU graduate. We felt very strongly that we needed all of the Democrats that had previously committed to participate, and so in a joint discussion, we sat down and said, if it will satisfy the candidates, Benedict College will step in and coordinate the forum portion.

Starting point is 00:07:38 Should be noted that the logistics, the production, the sponsored events, the panels were all coordinated by 2020. The only portion that Benedict stepped into control of was the candidate format for the Democrats. And the reality was, or the plan was, that those Democratic candidates would have the same discretion that President Trump had been given. That means if they chose to simply give an hour long speech and take no questions, they could do that. If they wanted to go with a pre-approved format, they could do that as well. Each candidate then was given the discretion over their own format in an effort to balance the scale, if you will.

Starting point is 00:08:15 The president had, of course, been able to define the terms of his appearance, and so we gave every Democratic candidate the exact same opportunity. Was any money given to Benedict to host either of the days? It was anticipated that any sponsorship of that event, corporate sponsorship, would be divided equally between Benedict and 2020 after any expenses. But as you can imagine, with Secret Service, sound, set up, et cetera. We don't anticipate a windfall. And would that have happened when President Obama came as well?

Starting point is 00:08:51 Was that a sponsored event? You know, I was not leading Benedict College at that time, so I can't answer that question. I don't know. If you had been in office when President Obama visited the school and then as well, would you have had the opportunity to turn it down because the students were not allowed to roam the campus or to come to the event or to have some sort of interaction? Well, I think the, quote, roam the campus piece, again, was the same protocol as when Barack Obama was on campus.

Starting point is 00:09:29 I did host him at Florida Memorial and that protocol. You simply don't have people free to move about when a motorcade is on the campus. They do have to protect the president and or in this instance, let's not be, you know, I won't sugarcoat it. The concern was that there would be demonstrations. And so it was safer to keep the kids indoors than to risk them clashing with any protesters. The Secret Service actually did a very good job. There were no protests on the grounds of Benedict College. Of course, some individuals, including our students, by the way, participated in protests across the street, around the perimeter.

Starting point is 00:10:05 But our goal was to keep movement on the campus to a minimum and keep those students safe and to ensure there were no incidents on our campus. We are not CVA. So the students were able to leave the campus and go and protest with the others if they did it before the time constraints were enforced. That is correct. And that's exactly why I spoke with them on Wednesday to explain about what time there would be, you know, stopping of movement, that kind of thing. And several of our students did, of course, exercise their discretion, leave the campus and participate in peaceful protests. Well, if it happened again, I would assume that you would want to ensure that the college is very much involved in the planning of, again, those questions and things along those lines, because otherwise it gives the appearance that Trump had a photo op at HBCU

Starting point is 00:11:03 versus actually having to be questioned on this really important issue like criminal justice reform. Absolutely, Rowan. I can't agree with you more. All right. Dr. Rosalyn Artis, President of Benedict College, we certainly appreciate you answering our questions and hopefully folks now have the fuller story of what took place this weekend. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Starting point is 00:11:23 Appreciate you. Tom, stick with your Nationals. Go Astros. This is an iHeart Podcast.

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#RolandMartinUnfiltered - All Hell Broke Loose! Drama At Benedict College Over Trump's Visit To The HBCU

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