San Jose State University President Mary Papazian announced a majority of Fall 2021 classes will have elements of in-person learning and addressed community members’ grievances regarding Gregory Johnson Jr.'s death in Wednesday’s Associated Students Board of Directors meeting.
Kenneth Mashinchi, senior director of strategic communications and media relations,
said in a Wednesday email Papazian attended the A.S. meeting to discuss the return to campus for Fall 2021.
Papazian said 50-75% of classes will have some form of in-person or hybrid learning.
“The hope is to be far more in person and aligned with the governor's recommendation to open the state by June 15,” Papazian said. “A lot of it depends on vaccination access.”
Papazian also said officials are “working really hard” to make campus a vaccination site for Santa Clara County.
Advocates for Johnson expressed disappointment with Papazian in the Zoom chat during her update.
"How is she able to talk casually about anything else than Gregory?” alumna Pamela Emanuel wrote.
Supporters interrupted Papazian and voiced frustration with her inaction and lack of accountability in Johnson’s case.
Johnson was a former SJSU student who was found dead in the basement of the Sigma Chi fraternity house in 2008.
The University Police Department and the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office declared his death a suicide, according to the autopsy report.
However, Johnson’s family and supporters believe Johnson’s death was a hate crime, as he was the only Black member of Sigma Chi and have called on reopening the investigation.
After the comments, Papazian said she would have Vice President of Student Affairs Patrick Day set up a space for discussion with students so they could continue the conversation.
“I'll share with you what I know, listen to what you're looking for and see where we can go from there,” Papazian said. “I can't make promises and I know you want to hear them.”
While public comments are typically held until the end of the meeting, some A.S. directors allowed community members to speak during the director’s designated agenda times.
“For you [Papazian] to come in here and act like you didn't ignore the calls we've been making not just for the past several months, but the calls that this family has been making for the past 13 years for you to at least acknowledge the murder of Gregory Johnson that happened at [SJSU] is beyond insulting,” Lou Dimes, president of Black Liberation and Collective Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K) Outreach said during the meeting.
Johnson’s mother, Denise Johnson, described her son as intelligent and friendly and said she attributes his death to racism held by those who were members of the Sigma Chi fraternity at the time of her son’s death.
“I guess that's why they killed him,” Johnson said. “He was just too friendly, just too black, too smart and too poor for them [Sigma Chi brothers].”
Community members said Papazian could start taking action against racism at the university by dismantling the Sigma Chi fraternity.
“You have the power to shut down that fraternity very easily,” Emanuel said during the meeting. “It's honestly disgusting how there's still students in there sleeping in that bed when someone was murdered there [in the Sigma Chi house].”
Supporters have waited to speak with Papazian since the Feb. 24 A.S. meeting. Papazian was scheduled to attend the meeting to respond to general questions from attendees as the first agenda item, as she usually does once or twice a year, Mashinchi said.
Many community members attended the meeting hoping Papazian would speak on the case because a resolution in his name was a later agenda item. However, she was absent, upsetting many supporters of Johnson’s family.
Mashinchi said she was unable to attend the Feb. 24 meeting because of technical difficulties and time constraints.
Several of Johnson’s supporters were concerned Papazian wouldn’t show up again, writing in Wednesday’s Zoom chat that she was hiding.
“Someone let her know that Mrs. Johnson is here waiting on her once again,” one of the messages read.
“[I had] little to no faith she would show up honestly,” said Julius Moridis, a radio, TV and film sophomore in a phone call after the meeting. “It was infuriating that she couldn't even show up [during the Feb. 24 meeting], I was incredibly mad.”
