FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Students at Connecticut’s Fairfield University will see a new Black Lives Matter course offering next semester to discuss the plight of blacks from a “historical, philosophical, economic, sociological perspective.”

The new course is the brainchild of students who attended professor Kris Sealey’s Critical Race Theory class last fall. Those students, with Sealey’s guiding hand, later formed the student group “Racial Justice is Social Justice” to protest the deaths of black criminals at the hands of white police officers, The Fairfield Mirror student newspaper reports.

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RJSJ, as it’s called, has since advocated for a class modeled after a seminar style Black Lives Matter course at Dartmouth, and staff and school officials worked with them to make it happen.

“There was a student call for a space where they can make sense of all these [incidents] in an academic or intellectual way,” Sealey said told the news site.

“We wanted the course to model the Black Lives Matter course, which is at Dartmouth already, to be a seminar-based class that allows for healthy dialogue on issues of race and racial injustices in the country and how it related to our campus, here,” said RJSJ organizer Joe Harding, a sophomore.

Harding said that after Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year, there was a backlash from some, which he believes is evidence the school could use some lessons on racism and social justice.

“(The racism) really hit home for us because we felt like we weren’t safe on campus,” he said. “We felt like our lives didn’t matter and weren’t validated.”

Harding also believes that despite the school’s affiliation with the Society of Jesus, which is focused heavily on social justice, racism is alive and well at the school, even if students don’t notice it.

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“(M)any students of color on campus don’t feel like (the Jesuit mission) is being practiced on our campus and so this class will hopefully allow for students to engage in dialogue that brings up the idea that racism is pervasive in our community, even though we don’t see it explicitly,” he said.

Fairfield alumni Alan Pelaez-Lopez graduated last year and helped to organize the recent Black Lives Matter protests on campus. He told the Mirror the new course is critical to address the school’s atmosphere of “silent racism.”

“I think a similar course is needed at every university, but as a Jesuit university, it is especially important for Fairfield to carry through with the course to reflect Jesuit values,” he said. “On a personal note, I think it’s needed because there’s a sense of silent racism on Fairfield. Students are very courteous, but the racism comes out in micro-aggressions.”

RJSJ students held a recent Black Lives Matter protest similar to one held by their role models at Dartmouth, where students stormed the college’s library with large signs shouting racial epithets and shoving their classmates who were trying to study for exams, EAGnews reports.

The protest at Fairfield, held yesterday, was more subdued, but students chanted similar slogans and toted similar Black Lives Matter signs.

Sealey, as well as several other faculty, helped the students organize and facilitate the demonstration, according to the Mirror.

Earlier this year, Fairfield police launched an investigation after someone distributed “White Lives Matter” flyers around the community, NBC Connecticut reports.

Fairfield police Lt. James Perez said the fliers, which were dropped in front of at least eight homes, were wrapped in a plastic bag with rocks inside.

“Each bag contained a folded 8” by 11” piece of white paper that read ‘White Lives Matter,’” according to the May 10 news report. “Identical fliers have been found in Westport, Milford, and East Haven in recent weeks.”