On Wednesday, Loyola students gathered to enjoy an end of the academic year party, only to witness University Police escort Christian Champagne, the popular New Orleans spoken word poet, off campus.

University Programming Board, the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences and the Visual Arts department co-sponsored the “Let’s Party, the End is Here” event in the Residential Quad. The event started at 3:30 p.m., where Fay Wray, a band comprised of Loyola students performed first, followed by Champagne.

According to Kathleen Rafferty, marketing junior, Champagne started by performing poetry. After sometime, Rafferty said Champagne began to perform political satire, specifically aimed at presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama eliciting booing from the crowd, Rafferty said.

“Obviously we’re a liberal arts campus,” she said. “People started booing. Someone told me he started using racial slurs, but I didn’t hear him.”

Jessica Williams, mass communication freshman and Maroon staff writer, said she began booing Champagne along with other students when he started making comments aimed at Obama.

“He just kind of started going off saying Barack’s not qualified. He’s a mack daddy,” Williams said. “He was saying his wife was straight from Africa, and that they were both raised in the projects.”

According to Williams, Champagne turned toward her and said, “F— you.”

“As soon as he said that, this lady escorted him off the stage,” Williams said.

That lady was Katharine McNair, academic counselor for the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences. McNair could not be contacted for comment at press time Wednesday night.

Champagne told The Maroon he was hired to perform 30 minutes of poetry and some political satire and dismissed the seriousness of the event. He said the crowd was “sparse,” so he proceeded to perform some political satire.

“It was not my intention to cause any problems,” Champagne said. “I have done that piece at several other poetry readings across the city, with a mixed race audience as well.”

Champagne said he made a mistake by including his Obama satire. He said he was not aware that Loyola has such a strong Obama following. Champagne said his material was not screened before appearing at Loyola. He said this was not his first performance at Loyola.

“I performed at Loyola last year, ok?” Champagne said. “In fact if Loyola is such a liberal school, and has a strong Barack Obama following, they don’t believe in freedom of speech? Is that what you’re telling me?

Williams said when Champagne left the stage, she approached him to ask him if he was racist. Champagne denied to comment if he used expletives and racial slurs toward Williams.

“You’re asking me if I said ‘F— you’ to the audience? I have no comment to make on that, ok?” Champagne said.

Champagne said he did not request to be escorted to his car by campus police.

“I got off the stage and left,” Champagne said. “It was no problem at all.”

Sgt. Lyle Hunter, of University Police said he is not allowed to give any information, but Champagne was not arrested.

“As far as I’m concerned, it isn’t a big deal,” Hunter said.

Michael Jackson, music business freshman and member of UPB, said UPB was not involved in hiring Champagne.

“Really I’m saddened by what happened,” Jackson said. “By this being a social justice university, this should have been handled differently.”

Following the incident, Williams created a group on Facebook called “Students Against the Hiring of Racist Spoken Word Artists at Loyola.” At press time, there were 37 students in the group. She said Loyola should have properly screened Champagne’s content before having him perform at Loyola.

“It’s crazy. Some people asked me if I’m going to calm down. No, I’m not going to calm down,” Williams said. “It doesn’t just affect me as a black woman, or as a Democrat. It affects everyone.”

Jaune Jackson can be reached at [email protected].