The head of Eastern Illinois University’s “University Board,” a campus entertainment organization, has been suspended and forced to undergo diversity training after some students complained about the songs on his Sound Cloud page.
The “explicit” songs and raps in question — produced by UB Chair Dallas Lancense — were deemed “insensitive” and “unacceptable” in a UB press release back on November 26.
“(Lancense’s) production, postings and promotion of ‘explicit’ songs/lyrical content on public display in social media has been deemed insensitive, discriminatory and offensive in nature to the UB membership and the EIU student body which is inconsistent with the representation, purpose and brand of University Board,” the statement continued.
According to The Daily Eastern News, Lancense (seen below in a EIU Facebook post from February), said the whole situation was a misunderstanding, but gets why the actions against him were taken.
“University Board is an organization at its base value; to make sure the organization’s name isn’t tarnished is something that the board must do,” he said.
Mariah Marlar, the UB vice chair, said his songs that were published on SoundCloud but have since been taken down, were brought to her and other members’ attention during the first week of November, and she said they started to look into it.
Initially, she said members told Lancense to take down the material, but when he did not students kept coming back to ask about it, and she said as a board they decided that a suspension along with diversity training was needed.
She said the reason why students had a problem with the songs is because although they are his form of expression, he is a student leader and it was “unbecoming” of a leader.
“It put us in a tight position because we are a board that wants to show diversity and inclusion, but when someone is on the board and says those things it looks hypocritical,” she said. “He is the role model for UB; he has more weight on his shoulders.” …
Though Marlar said [Lancense’s] most recent posting was a year ago, Lancenese said the “issue matter” happened eight years ago when he was 13-years old and his early raps were satirical.
“The language used in these raps may have been offensive, but I was not using any terms in an offensive manner. I was taking what I heard every day, what I saw every day, how the community around me acted and spoke, and put it in to music,” he said. “Yes, the music may have been a bit outlandish, but people who know me know that, again, all of my early raps were satirical.”
Marlar added that the sanctions against Lancense are “a good learning opportunity” and will serve as “a wake-up call.”
For his part, aside from deleting his Sound Cloud content, Lancense was charmingly contrite, noting he will “take more action into learning about different cultures than his own.”
The College Fix reached out to The Daily Eastern News for more information regarding just what was “offensive” in the songs, but did not receive a response.
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