Student union frustrated as IU cancels its annual MLK dinner

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An annual dinner honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Indiana University Indianapolis has been canceled due to “budget constraints,” according to the event’s frustrated student organizers.

The IU Indianapolis Black Student Union announced the cancellation of the dinner in a letter on social media Wednesday.

The Dr. Martin Luther King Dinner has been a campus tradition for nearly 60 years, but the organizers say in the letter that the cancellation “was not a decision made by the Black Student Union.”

The Black Student Union wrote, “The decision was communicated to us by the Division of Student Affairs through the Office of Student Involvement (citing) ‘budget constraints’ following organizational and funding transitions.

“We received formal notice of this decision via email at the very end of the fall semester, leaving us with little to no opportunity to pivot, reimagine, or implement an alternative, large-scale celebration within the remaining academic timeline.”

According to the student union, its members had been working “diligently” through the fall to confirm funding and approval for the dinner, but “delayed communication, combined with timing of the decision, created significant barriers to (their) ability to act in the ways (they) would have wanted.”

The cancellation has left the group with feelings of frustra...