Megan Valley, The Observer
As part of student government’s Race Relations Week, David Robinson, former NBA player and father of student body president Corey Robinson; David Krashna, Notre Dame’s first African-American body president; Christina Brooks, the City of South Bend’s diversity and inclusion officer; and Maria and Gabby Muñoz, undocumented students at Notre Dame spoke in a panel Wednesday, Oct. 26, on racial justice in the context of opportunity.
“Race Relations Week was an idea brought to our current student body president, Corey Robinson, by David Krashna, a 1971 graduate of the University and Notre Dame’s first African-American student body president,” senior Rachel Wallace, student union representative to diversity council, said. “[Krashna] had a vision for creating a space on our campus for honest discourse about racial justice from a variety of different perspectives.”
Juniors Maria and Gabby Muñoz are studying chemical engineering at the University thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented residents to work and attend college legally in the U.S. They could not, however, apply for student loans, and many schools required them to apply as international students, forcing them to pay out-of-state tuition.
“Aware of this, we applied to 18 different colleges, hoping that one of them would offer us enough financial aid,” Gabby Muñoz said. “Several of them rejected us because we were DACA students and others could not give us the financial support that we needed. Notre Dame was the only school that offered us full aid.”
Originally published by The Observer at ndsmcobserver.com on October 27, 2016.