Body: 

From: The Office of the President

OSU Community Members,

I am deeply saddened by the loss of Tyre Nichols’ life following the vicious attack he suffered at the hands of five Memphis police officers.

Mr. Nichols should not have died this way. No one should die this way. Police brutality is unequivocally wrong. It is a breach of trust with those upon whom we depend to protect us and our communities. Mr. Nichols’ death once again challenges us – as a nation and as a university community – to consider what we must do to stop these deaths.

The impact of this and other similar killings is significant, and I reflect more fully on this matter in a message I share on the presidential webpage. I ask all OSU community members to extend care, empathy and patience to each other as we once again weather a senseless death.

This Wednesday, journalist and scholar Jelani Cobb will visit OSU to provide the 41st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Keynote Address at 7 p.m. in the LaSells Stewart Center. His talk, “The Half-life of Freedom: Race and Justice in America Today,” will focus on what we must do to continue advancing a dream of racial equity in this country. The event is free and open to all, and I encourage you to register and attend.

If we truly wish to change our future, we must work together to create change in our university and in our communities. This work is difficult. It requires each of us to make a long-term commitment to challenge the status quo, right longstanding wrongs, reach across divides and heal our communities.

While I do not have all the solutions to these difficult challenges, I am deeply committed to this shared work. It is essential to our success as a university and as a community.

Sincerely,

Jayathi Y. Murthy, President

Send Date: 
Monday, January 30, 2023