Howard University students are at war with their rich neighbors who use the campus yard like it’s a dog park. For weeks now the students have expressed their concern about neighbors bringing their dogs to soil the historical campus yard.
The Bloomingdale neighborhood around Howard, which was once Black, has been taken over as rich whites move in and drive up the property values.
Howard University is a private school that shares its borders with a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.
The students complain that the neighborhood residents routinely walk their pampered pooches through the campus and use the yard as a dog park without picking up after their hounds.
The students say the neighbors are showing disrespect for the yard’s historical significance.
“The yard is for the students, and although everyone loves pets, I feel like it’s disrespectful to have the pets just running around, especially when there’s several parks around here, Malakhi Briggs told Fox 5 News.
“If they come on the yard and they’re just walking through, I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with that,” he said. “But I still feel like there are other ways to get around D.C. without having to cut through a college campus.”
But one neighbor disagreed.
“They’re in part of D.C., so they have to work within D.C. If they don’t want to be within D.C., then move the campus,” said Bloomingdale resident Sean Grubbs-Robishaw.
He added: “It’s our community and that’s how it should be.”
Howard University President Wayne A. I. Frederick said pet owners should not bring their hounds to the historically black university’s private areas.
In an email issued to the news media on Tuesday, Frederick said, “We recognize that service animals are a necessary aspect of modern-day life and we will accommodate them as needed. We appreciate pet owners respecting our campus by not bringing pets onto the private areas.”
It remains to be seen if the residents comply with the college’s wishes.
