Marc Thompson Education and Research Scholarship
About the Scholarship
As of January 1, 2026, our association has begun awarding scholarships to university students under the name Marc Thompson Education and Research Scholarship. This scholarship is given in memory of Marc Thompson, who was killed in the United States in 2014. The aim of the scholarship is to honor the human rights advocacy that Marc managed to embody in his short life and to support university students in their education and research.
The Story of Marc Thompson
From the pen of Ayşe Taşkıran
I met Marc at an anti-racism event at Butte College. His questions and comments immediately caught my attention. One day, I saw Marc sitting in a corner of the campus and sat down beside him to start a conversation. He was only 18 years old. After that first conversation, Marc enrolled in all of my courses, and our friendship grew stronger through the activities we organized together under the “Diversity Committee” and the “Anthropology Club.” We would go on long walks in the forest and talk for hours.
After graduating from Butte College, Marc continued his activism at Chico State University. He took an active role and provided leadership in various student organizations focused on democracy and equality. In an interview conducted at the university, he said:
“I want to become a Sociology professor, a diversity educator, and a writer. In this way, I can reach more people, help them find their passion, and become leaders of the change they want to see in the world.”
Legacy and Contributions
Marc’s accomplishments in his short life are too many to list. One of these was his participation in a documentary that focused on students from various universities speaking about the racism they experienced. This documentary is still used in diversity training programs today. It can be accessed here.
Just months before graduating from Chico State University with degrees in Sociology, Psychology, Women’s Studies, and Cross-Cultural Gender Studies, Marc was killed on September 3, 2014. He had just written an article about the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, USA, to be published in a Turkish newspaper, but he didn’t live long enough to see it published.
I still use the essay Marc wrote for an anti-racism writing contest held during Butte College Diversity Days in 2010, in my workshops on racism.
Local Chico news coverage on Marc’s killing.
