For the first time in history, Holmes Cultural Diversity Center is hosting Tunnel of Oppression Thursday in the Dawg House of the Colvard Student Union. 
This is a program to bring awareness to Mississippi State about different issues that occur on, around, and off of campus. The program will include topics such as: sexual assault, police brutality, and discrimination.
 The program will be an actual tunnel made from curtains that will allow people to go through and watch different scenes. There will be six scenes in total, each scene will run for five to seven minutes.
 The scenes will be performed by organizations within HCDC such as: I.D.E.A.L Women, Men of Excellence, P.A.Ws, Black Student Association and International Programming are creating different scenes. 
Rachel Ross, HCDC program coordinator, from and MSU Graduate student pursuing a degree in Counselor Education, said she hopes the Tunnel of Oppression is something that Holmes Cultural Diversity Center will make an annual event of. 
“It brings awareness to important issues and I really want it to focus on important topics that maybe even students at MSU have experienced,” Ross said. “It’ll make it seem more as if it is real life then on TV and to help students gain a better understanding and perspective.”
 
“If someone has never been sexually assaulted going through the scene and seeing the scene play out will help people understand and help others who’ve been through cope,” Ross said. “Hopefully it will encourage students to want to stand up and take a stand against these issues.” 
Bianca Tatum, president of I.D.E.A.L Women and senior marketing and public relations major, said she believes the Tunnel of Oppression is well needed in MSU’s diverse community.
“Mississippi State proudly boasts being the most diverse school in the SEC, and with that statement we must also work towards inclusion,” Tatum said. “In order to be inclusive in our mindsets, behaviors and within campus life we must understand that people are different and go through different things.”
I.D.E.A.L Women will portray a scene dealing with sexual assault. 
Isaac Lias Jr., vice president of Men of Excellence and sophomore psychology major, said he wants students to understand issues minorities face.
“The tunnel of oppression is a very good thing to have at a PWI. We see these incidents on television and the majority here on campus might not realize how severe the situation is,” Lias said. “Tunnel of Oppression will be a brief short moment for everyone on campus to be able to walk through and see what problems underrepresented students face. The Tunnel of Oppression will give insight to these topics.” 
The Men of Excellence plans on having a scene played on police brutality. They will perform a skit on the Jonathan Ferrell case an African-American, Florida A&M football player, who was killed due to extreme police violence.