Student activists at the University of Kansas are claiming that a sorority’s selling candy canes to benefit children with cancer at the same time as one of the activists’ protests was a racist microaggression against them.

According to Twitter, the Delta Delta Delta sorority was selling the candy when a student-activist group — an improve-the-racial-climate-on-campus group which calls itself “Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk” — came up and demanded that the members abandon the fundraiser and join them if they really wanted to do something to help others:

https://twitter.com/AKinkead/status/674663293248651264

https://twitter.com/AKinkead/status/674662775151394816

Now, to be fair, the protesters did clarify that they did not object to helping kids with cancer — it was just that the fact that they donated themselves should have been enough for the TriDelts to stop the fundraiser and join their protest instead:

y'all @InvisibleHawks isn't about silencing a philanthropy. I was there. I heard RCIH offer to buy all the candy so they could stand w them. — Daddy Dan (@DanicaCh) December 9, 2015

https://twitter.com/AKinkead/status/674677456452763648

Of course, it would seem to me that even if the protesters did donate, they have totally been able to understand why the sorority members would want to stay where they were and get even more donations. After all, aren’t kids with cancer important to help?




#share#Apparently, the fact that these women seemed to think helping the terminally ill kids was more important than stopping to join the protest was exactly what the activists considered so unacceptable:

https://twitter.com/AKinkead/status/674661828123750400

We shouldn't have CONTINOUSLY affirm that identities matter. We shouldn't have to prove our lives > $1 candy canes. #RockChalkInvisibleHawk — Alex Villagran (@SeVendeTamales) December 9, 2015

The sorority posted a statement on its Twitter account clarifying that their “intention was solely to raise money for kids suffering from cancer” and “not to take away from the issue of oppression of marginalized groups or to appear racially insensitive.”

The dispute gained media attention after being reported on by Campus Reform.