Given last week’s black student protests at Guilford College to show sympathy with similar protests at the University of Missouri, I wondered how long it would be before we’d see protests at my alma mater UNCG.

Not long:

There wasn’t one major incident that prompted UNC-Greensboro students on Monday to demand an end to what they called racist and unequal practices.

There were many.

At a demonstration outside the campus center, students stood alongside their peers at the University of Missouri and elsewhere and asked for the university to do better.

“What happened at the University of Missouri is not a singular occurrence,” said Carly Springs, a junior who’s majoring in psychology. “Campuses all over the U.S. refuse to recognize the experiences of marginalized students and continue to uphold white supremacy.”

Of course the irony here is UNCG chancellor Franklin Gilliam—on the job barely a few months—is not only African-American but has built his academic career around the concept of social justice:

Gilliam has launched new campaigns to elevate the School of Public Affairs’ mission of public service, which comprises graduate programs in public policy, social welfare, and urban planning; an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in public affairs (one of UCLA’s most popular); and active research centers, including the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, the Institute for Transportation Studies, the Center for Policy Research on Aging, and the Luskin Center for Innovation.

Under his leadership, the school has begun major initiatives to spotlight and disseminate the research of faculty and students on pressing issues such as immigration, drug policy, prison reform, low-income families and youth, health care financing, transportation and the environment, national security, and economic development.

Gosh I wonder how many students were aware of that when they took the streets on Monday afternoon. For what it’s worth, Gilliam really stuck it to them when students demanded UNCG hurry up and rename Aycock Auditorium, considering the namesake was one of the key figures in the state’s white supremacy movement of the late 19th century.

“We’re a university. We have to do our own due diligence,” Gilliam responded.