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The Chalkening was a protest that occurred on university campuses across the United States in March and April 2016, publicized by Trump social media director Dan Scavino and Ryan Fournier, National Chair of Students for Trump and John Lambert, National Vice Chair. Dozens of universities were affected. This protest mainly took the form of chalk writing in public areas on campus with slogans in support of the United States Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, such as "Trump 2016".
This mass, chalk-based, protest happened alongside an outpouring of media criticism of an incident at Emory University in March 2016. An Emory university administrator sent an email expressing support for students who claimed to feel threatened and unsafe by hate speech in the form of pro-Trump chalkings on the campus.
The criticism of the anti-Trump Emory students was a backlash that arose out of a perceived pattern of coddling by university administrators of certain groups of university students that hold unreasonable views on the standards of public discourse. The chalkening phenomenon has come amid heightened tensions on American university campuses surrounding the 2016 Presidential Campaign, which has sometimes included violence. Perceived microagressions, such as the chalkening, has been belittled by some commentators attempting to contrast it with world events in 2016 like such as genocide and war.
The Chalkening has been covered by multiple television and online media outlets. Its Twitter hashtags are #chalkening] and #TheChalkening. The name is derived from the internet phenomenon of jokingly naming events by creating a portmanteau of the description with "happening", such as in the case of "The Fappening". The term may also be intended to be comically reminiscent of a 2011 horror film, The Awakening, since the Emory University students were horrified by the pro-Trump chalkings. It has become a viral internet phenomenon, including giving rise to numerous memes.
In mid April, DePaul University banned the use of chalk on campus sidewalks after the College Republicans organized a chalking event where students wrote pro-Trump messages.