UPDATE, 3:41 p.m.: Demonstrators made their way up 14th and down LK Wood. They stood at the outskirts of the university to chant and are now headed back downtown.

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UPDATE, 3:19 p.m.: The march — which is about 500 strong, McGeary estimates — is moving up G Street toward HSU now.

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Photos/video: Stephanie McGeary.

UPDATE, 2:45 p.m.: As cars circled the Plaza for a graduation parade, honking — either in support of the demonstrators, or just because that’s what you do at a parade — Arcata High student Elijah Martinez tells the Outpost’s Stephanie McGeary told the crowd why he showed up to join the protest.

“I’m supposed to be worried about passing classes right now,” he said, “not about this. When I go to college I don’t want to be discriminated against for my skin color.”

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Around 300 people have gathered on the Arcata Plaza this afternoon for what organizers have called an “educational demonstration” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. They’re calling on Humboldt State University to institute a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech, and to “acknowledge their own systemic racism/oppression within the institution.”

The event follows the disciplining, last week, of two Humboldt State students who were determined to have published racist posts on social media.

The Outpost’s Stephanie McGeary is at the event and tells us that speakers have set up in the center of the Plaza, where the McKinley statue once stood. Soon protesters are scheduled to march up G Street and down 14th to Humboldt State.