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New Neighbors Keep Walking Their Dogs On Howard’s Campus. Students Say It’s Disrespectful
Natalie Delgadillo
The Yard on Howard’s campus.
IIP Photo Archive / Flickr
The Yard at Howard University looks like a typical college campus quad: a set of criss-crossing cement paths bisecting large grassy patches, flanked by nine academic buildings and—especially when it’s nice out—teeming with college students.
You might find students tossing a football, taking in the sun, jamming to music. But, for many of them, The Yard is more than just a space to hang out; it’s a place imbued with history and meaning.
“What I didn’t completely know until I got to Howard was just how much of a sacred space [The Yard] is to historically black universities,” says Amanda Bonam, who graduated from Howard in 2017. “It’s always a hub of activity.”
The Yard is where Yardfest, the school’s homecoming celebration, happens each year. It’s where the Divine Nine, the historically black sororities and fraternities, have trees planted in their honor. It’s where students go to congregate, to celebrate, to mourn.
And in recent years, The Yard has also increasingly become something else: a place where nearby residents exercise, go for a leisurely stroll, or lay out a picnic blanket with their family.
For many students, such activities at the very heart of their campus are not only unwelcome, they’re brazenly inconsiderate. And perhaps none so much as residents taking their dogs for a walk.
“You know this is a university. You know this is a historically black university. And you feel so entitled that you’re just going to walk your dog there?” says Briana Littlejohn, a graduating senior at Howard. “I find it very disrespectful.”
She’s not alone. Resentment about residents’ use of campus, particularly The Yard, for recreational activities has grown in recent years, as the surrounding neighborhoods—Shaw, Pleasant Plains, and LeDroit Park—have seen increasing numbers of wealthier, white residents.
For many students, the fight to preserve their space on campus mirrors a larger fight against cultural—and physical—displacement in the neighborhood. Many of them likened it to the recent silencing of go-go music playing at the Metro PCS store just down the street from campus. After 20 years of blasting the funky hometown tunes at the corner of 7th and Florida, the owner said he had to bring his speakers inside because a nearby resident threatened a lawsuit. After a major outcry, the music returned. But the underlying tensions remain.
“When I first started at Howard in 2014, there were still a lot of black faces [in the neighborhood],” says Julien Broomfield, a senior at Howard from Newark, a majority black city in New Jersey. “When I came to D.C., it wasn’t so much a culture shock to me because it reminded me of home. It doesn’t remind me of home anymore. It’s a very drastic change.”
The black population in Shaw, for example, fell from 78 percent in 1990 to 44 percent in 2010, the last year with available census data. It’s likely dropped even more precipitously in the years since then.
Broomfield says that, during her freshman year, she probably only saw three residents total walking their dogs on campus. Now, she sees at least one or two every day.
Darren Jones, a 60-year black resident of the neighborhood and president of the Pleasant Plains Civic Association, says that in all the years he’s lived in the neighborhood, he has never considered picnicking or walking a dog on Howard’s campus. But he’s increasingly noticed new neighbors doing so. “Younger people today just feel that it’s their neighborhood and they’re going to use it,” he says.
As the number of dog-walkers, joggers, and picnickers has grown, so too has the friction with students.
In 2015, students started the Twitter hashtag #wearenotapark, expressing distaste with residents using the campus as communal green space. “Dear White people, Howard University is not a park,” reads one tweet. “Howard is our safe space, not your play place,” reads another.
In the fall of 2018, Keneshia Grant, a political science professor at Howard University, tweeted “Howard University is an institution of higher learning, not a dog park … I wish I had time to write something longer about why many Howard folks loathe the sight of dogs pooping on our lawns, respect/reverence for black spaces, and our complicated history with dogs.”
And the issue popped up again this month on local blog Popville, when a reader shared a “bad experience” they had with their dog on campus. The person, who described themselves as a resident of the neighborhood for five years, wrote that “a group of students started screaming at us that dogs weren’t welcome on campus. One girl yelled, ‘This is a closed campus, I’m going to call the cops on you. The students continued to scream at us and follow us for around five minutes.” The letter goes on to ask: “Is there a policy against dogs at Howard?”
Alonda Thomas, a Howard University spokesperson, says there is no policy prohibiting dogs. Howard’s campus is open, meaning anyone is allowed to walk through it.
But beyond the issue of legality, the comment section blew up. Some expressed outrage at the students’ alleged behavior. “Nice that teenagers who’ve lived in DC all of a year and a half are telling decades long residents what quasi-public spaces they’re allowed in. Is it really gentrification that’s ruining Howard, or are they doing it to themselves?” wrote one commenter.
Others, many of them Howard students themselves, rallied to their defense.
“It’s not just about the dogs, but the fact that we go to an hbcu to surround ourselves with a safe community we can be ourselves around,” writes another. “Y’all continue to be in our bubble and it gets worse and worse everyday. You come here and think you can just insert yourself into a space we use to be confident in our identity without y’all stepping in.”
Several students who spoke with DCist complained that some dog owners don’t pick up after their pets when they go to the bathroom on Howard grass, but that’s not their main point of contention. Many (though certainly not all) say that allowing dogs to relieve themselves, or even walk through campus, in the first place is inherently disrespectful.
The students and Howard alumni said they don’t necessarily want to close the campus. Instead, they want outsiders to respect their wishes and the culture of their school. Several also mentioned that many neighbors who walk onto campus are reserved and unfriendly.
“I would like to see [residents] on campus. I would never want to say ‘no you’re not welcome here,’” says Broomfield. “I would just like to see more engagement with students … more of an understanding of what we use The Yard for and what it means to us. Then they’ll see like maybe coming onto The Yard and walking the dog isn’t cool, maybe coming onto campus and not talking to anybody comes off a certain way.”
Students also said that they see Howard as a sacred, safe space for them in a city (and country) where they often feel marginalized.
“There are limited spaces for young African American people in Northwest D.C. Many of my classmates talk about the challenges of going into stores and being followed, or going places and just not being comfortable,” says Allyson Carpenter, who graduated in 2017, and served as both the president of the Howard student body and as an ANC commissioner for the area. “Our campus should be a safe space for us. We work really hard to make it a safe space.”
On a historically black college campus, in an increasingly non-black neighborhood, questions of race underlie the tension between students and residents using the campus space. But it’s not the mere presence of a white or non-black person on campus that bothers them, several students told DCist.
“It’s not like we don’t have students who are not black on our campus, but it’s a different feeling,” says Littlejohn. “The students who are non-black who go here didn’t just choose to go to Howard on a whim. They know. There’s a respect for the culture, the people, and the area.”
Students argue that Howard’s context and history—and the particular reverence its students have for the space—make it different from other colleges in D.C. where students might see a resident walking a dog on campus and not bat an eye.
George Washington University and Catholic University both told DCist they are completely open campuses, and people are allowed to walk their pets outdoors. At Georgetown and American University, too, it’s common to see residents walking through with their dogs without incident or grumbling from students.
But Gallaudet University, a college for deaf and hard of hearing people in Northeast, is different. The campus is not open to just anyone—nearby residents have to become a member of the “Gallaudet Connection Program” to access the campus and its facilities, and they are never allowed to bring pets or guests on campus.
Some residents who live around Howard say they understand students’ discontent with people walking dogs on The Yard.
“I went to college in Vermont. If someone had walked their dog on the quad and was letting it go to the bathroom on the grass that would have annoyed me. It would strike me as kind of disrespectful,” says Luke Martin, a nearby resident who has lived near Howard for about two years. “The quad is usually like the crown jewel of a college, and it’s disrespectful to let your dog go to the bathroom there.”
Others are sympathetic to student concerns, but they can see both sides of the coin.
“Howard is a big place, it’s an open campus, it’s a long way for some people to go [to walk around campus]. If there are 20 dogs at Howard on one patch of grass, then that’s a problem. If there are five dogs going through a day and it happens to be the houses directly abutting the area, then you’re almost part of Howard too, right?” says Scott Maucione, a reporter at WTOP who has lived near Howard since November 2017.
But Maucione also says that he can see why students might be annoyed at the sight of people using their campus like a community amenity. “I love having them as a part of the community, and the culture they bring to the community as a historically black university. But they also deserve their space … and to not have a bunch of townies getting in their way all the time,” he says. “It’s a delicate balance between having an open campus and totally usurping their area.”
Jones, the president of the Pleasant Plains Civic Association, pins some of the blame on the more transient nature of the neighborhood, as more renters move in and longtime homeowners are displaced. “They don’t have the same sense of investment in the community,” he says.
Students say that comes across clearly when neighbors don’t seem to pick up that certain behaviors, like dogwalking, are viewed as disrespectful.
“The city isn’t enough? Now you have to come on campus and make your own home there?” says Littlejohn, the Howard senior. “It would be different if they were really trying to integrate with students, with Howard. But they’re not. They just live around campus and think they can go there … because it’s a space they can encroach on.”
New Neighbors Keep Walking Their Dogs On Howard's Campus. Students Say It's Disrespectful | DCist
Natalie Delgadillo
The Yard on Howard’s campus.
IIP Photo Archive / Flickr
The Yard at Howard University looks like a typical college campus quad: a set of criss-crossing cement paths bisecting large grassy patches, flanked by nine academic buildings and—especially when it’s nice out—teeming with college students.
You might find students tossing a football, taking in the sun, jamming to music. But, for many of them, The Yard is more than just a space to hang out; it’s a place imbued with history and meaning.
“What I didn’t completely know until I got to Howard was just how much of a sacred space [The Yard] is to historically black universities,” says Amanda Bonam, who graduated from Howard in 2017. “It’s always a hub of activity.”
The Yard is where Yardfest, the school’s homecoming celebration, happens each year. It’s where the Divine Nine, the historically black sororities and fraternities, have trees planted in their honor. It’s where students go to congregate, to celebrate, to mourn.
And in recent years, The Yard has also increasingly become something else: a place where nearby residents exercise, go for a leisurely stroll, or lay out a picnic blanket with their family.
For many students, such activities at the very heart of their campus are not only unwelcome, they’re brazenly inconsiderate. And perhaps none so much as residents taking their dogs for a walk.
“You know this is a university. You know this is a historically black university. And you feel so entitled that you’re just going to walk your dog there?” says Briana Littlejohn, a graduating senior at Howard. “I find it very disrespectful.”
She’s not alone. Resentment about residents’ use of campus, particularly The Yard, for recreational activities has grown in recent years, as the surrounding neighborhoods—Shaw, Pleasant Plains, and LeDroit Park—have seen increasing numbers of wealthier, white residents.
For many students, the fight to preserve their space on campus mirrors a larger fight against cultural—and physical—displacement in the neighborhood. Many of them likened it to the recent silencing of go-go music playing at the Metro PCS store just down the street from campus. After 20 years of blasting the funky hometown tunes at the corner of 7th and Florida, the owner said he had to bring his speakers inside because a nearby resident threatened a lawsuit. After a major outcry, the music returned. But the underlying tensions remain.
“When I first started at Howard in 2014, there were still a lot of black faces [in the neighborhood],” says Julien Broomfield, a senior at Howard from Newark, a majority black city in New Jersey. “When I came to D.C., it wasn’t so much a culture shock to me because it reminded me of home. It doesn’t remind me of home anymore. It’s a very drastic change.”
The black population in Shaw, for example, fell from 78 percent in 1990 to 44 percent in 2010, the last year with available census data. It’s likely dropped even more precipitously in the years since then.
Broomfield says that, during her freshman year, she probably only saw three residents total walking their dogs on campus. Now, she sees at least one or two every day.
Darren Jones, a 60-year black resident of the neighborhood and president of the Pleasant Plains Civic Association, says that in all the years he’s lived in the neighborhood, he has never considered picnicking or walking a dog on Howard’s campus. But he’s increasingly noticed new neighbors doing so. “Younger people today just feel that it’s their neighborhood and they’re going to use it,” he says.
As the number of dog-walkers, joggers, and picnickers has grown, so too has the friction with students.
In 2015, students started the Twitter hashtag #wearenotapark, expressing distaste with residents using the campus as communal green space. “Dear White people, Howard University is not a park,” reads one tweet. “Howard is our safe space, not your play place,” reads another.
In the fall of 2018, Keneshia Grant, a political science professor at Howard University, tweeted “Howard University is an institution of higher learning, not a dog park … I wish I had time to write something longer about why many Howard folks loathe the sight of dogs pooping on our lawns, respect/reverence for black spaces, and our complicated history with dogs.”
And the issue popped up again this month on local blog Popville, when a reader shared a “bad experience” they had with their dog on campus. The person, who described themselves as a resident of the neighborhood for five years, wrote that “a group of students started screaming at us that dogs weren’t welcome on campus. One girl yelled, ‘This is a closed campus, I’m going to call the cops on you. The students continued to scream at us and follow us for around five minutes.” The letter goes on to ask: “Is there a policy against dogs at Howard?”
Alonda Thomas, a Howard University spokesperson, says there is no policy prohibiting dogs. Howard’s campus is open, meaning anyone is allowed to walk through it.
But beyond the issue of legality, the comment section blew up. Some expressed outrage at the students’ alleged behavior. “Nice that teenagers who’ve lived in DC all of a year and a half are telling decades long residents what quasi-public spaces they’re allowed in. Is it really gentrification that’s ruining Howard, or are they doing it to themselves?” wrote one commenter.
Others, many of them Howard students themselves, rallied to their defense.
“It’s not just about the dogs, but the fact that we go to an hbcu to surround ourselves with a safe community we can be ourselves around,” writes another. “Y’all continue to be in our bubble and it gets worse and worse everyday. You come here and think you can just insert yourself into a space we use to be confident in our identity without y’all stepping in.”
Several students who spoke with DCist complained that some dog owners don’t pick up after their pets when they go to the bathroom on Howard grass, but that’s not their main point of contention. Many (though certainly not all) say that allowing dogs to relieve themselves, or even walk through campus, in the first place is inherently disrespectful.
The students and Howard alumni said they don’t necessarily want to close the campus. Instead, they want outsiders to respect their wishes and the culture of their school. Several also mentioned that many neighbors who walk onto campus are reserved and unfriendly.
“I would like to see [residents] on campus. I would never want to say ‘no you’re not welcome here,’” says Broomfield. “I would just like to see more engagement with students … more of an understanding of what we use The Yard for and what it means to us. Then they’ll see like maybe coming onto The Yard and walking the dog isn’t cool, maybe coming onto campus and not talking to anybody comes off a certain way.”
Students also said that they see Howard as a sacred, safe space for them in a city (and country) where they often feel marginalized.
“There are limited spaces for young African American people in Northwest D.C. Many of my classmates talk about the challenges of going into stores and being followed, or going places and just not being comfortable,” says Allyson Carpenter, who graduated in 2017, and served as both the president of the Howard student body and as an ANC commissioner for the area. “Our campus should be a safe space for us. We work really hard to make it a safe space.”
On a historically black college campus, in an increasingly non-black neighborhood, questions of race underlie the tension between students and residents using the campus space. But it’s not the mere presence of a white or non-black person on campus that bothers them, several students told DCist.
“It’s not like we don’t have students who are not black on our campus, but it’s a different feeling,” says Littlejohn. “The students who are non-black who go here didn’t just choose to go to Howard on a whim. They know. There’s a respect for the culture, the people, and the area.”
Students argue that Howard’s context and history—and the particular reverence its students have for the space—make it different from other colleges in D.C. where students might see a resident walking a dog on campus and not bat an eye.
George Washington University and Catholic University both told DCist they are completely open campuses, and people are allowed to walk their pets outdoors. At Georgetown and American University, too, it’s common to see residents walking through with their dogs without incident or grumbling from students.
But Gallaudet University, a college for deaf and hard of hearing people in Northeast, is different. The campus is not open to just anyone—nearby residents have to become a member of the “Gallaudet Connection Program” to access the campus and its facilities, and they are never allowed to bring pets or guests on campus.
Some residents who live around Howard say they understand students’ discontent with people walking dogs on The Yard.
“I went to college in Vermont. If someone had walked their dog on the quad and was letting it go to the bathroom on the grass that would have annoyed me. It would strike me as kind of disrespectful,” says Luke Martin, a nearby resident who has lived near Howard for about two years. “The quad is usually like the crown jewel of a college, and it’s disrespectful to let your dog go to the bathroom there.”
Others are sympathetic to student concerns, but they can see both sides of the coin.
“Howard is a big place, it’s an open campus, it’s a long way for some people to go [to walk around campus]. If there are 20 dogs at Howard on one patch of grass, then that’s a problem. If there are five dogs going through a day and it happens to be the houses directly abutting the area, then you’re almost part of Howard too, right?” says Scott Maucione, a reporter at WTOP who has lived near Howard since November 2017.
But Maucione also says that he can see why students might be annoyed at the sight of people using their campus like a community amenity. “I love having them as a part of the community, and the culture they bring to the community as a historically black university. But they also deserve their space … and to not have a bunch of townies getting in their way all the time,” he says. “It’s a delicate balance between having an open campus and totally usurping their area.”
Jones, the president of the Pleasant Plains Civic Association, pins some of the blame on the more transient nature of the neighborhood, as more renters move in and longtime homeowners are displaced. “They don’t have the same sense of investment in the community,” he says.
Students say that comes across clearly when neighbors don’t seem to pick up that certain behaviors, like dogwalking, are viewed as disrespectful.
“The city isn’t enough? Now you have to come on campus and make your own home there?” says Littlejohn, the Howard senior. “It would be different if they were really trying to integrate with students, with Howard. But they’re not. They just live around campus and think they can go there … because it’s a space they can encroach on.”
New Neighbors Keep Walking Their Dogs On Howard's Campus. Students Say It's Disrespectful | DCist
this goes on at every college that has a neighborhood by it.
