Confronting racism on college campuses
We’ve been told again and again that millennials are comfortable with diversity in a way that previous generations have not been, and that they are unlikely to be plagued by the prejudices and biases that dogged their forebears.
There is almost certainly a great deal of truth in this. Millennials have come of age at a time when an African-American became president of the United States, when celebrities are out of the closet with no discernible impact on their earning potential and when women are ascending to heights of power in political, corporate and academic realms. The Trump administration may well be a throwback to a time when white males exclusively swaggered through the precincts of power, but it is more than likely a speedbump on the road to greater equality, rather than a brick wall.
Racism is persistent, however, and has not been entirely extinguished. A report that appeared in Monday’s Observer-Reporter makes that clear. It outlines the soul-searching that has been happening on the Washington & Jefferson College campus in the wake of the March 30 resignation of the student government president after a post to social media that many took to be racist. An apology was issued saying that he “did not intend to offend or disparage anyone.”
Fair enough. And W&J has made a good bit of progress in making its campus more diverse, and should be commended for it – in a little more than 10 years, the number of freshmen who identified as minority increased from 4.8 percent to 14.7 percent. But the story revealed that there is still work to be done.
Incoming student government president Kenny Clark, who is African-American, said racism on the 1,400-student campus might be more the result of clumsy ignorance rather than hard-hearted malice. Clark said he has been on the receiving end of surprised reactions to his academic success. He explained he has heard derogatory names and disrespectful language being uttered.
“It’s the little things that add up,” he said. “If it’s a big thing, it’s going to get attention. The little things stick with me. I don’t want students to sit on it and swallow it. I think W&J needs to act … so students know what to do when racial incidents happen.”
More disturbingly, another African-American student reported a campus security guard threatening to hang him and some friends from trees and “have our bodies swinging in the wind for everyone to look at us as an example.”
W&J President Tori Haring-Smith said some staffers have been required to attend diversity training classes, though she would not specify specific incidents or offenders. She also pointed to such initiatives as the Charles West Fellows program, which is designed to support and build the leadership skills of African-American students, and a drama by communications arts professor William Cameron that was staged last year and explored issues of race on campus.
Also, W&J is hardly alone in having to confront issues surrounding race. A report in the fall by Inside Higher Ed recounted incidents at Ohio University, the University of Dayton, San Jose State University, the State University of New York at Brockport and other campuses. Granted, sometimes college students can act impulsively and say things they regret later, particularly if they are under the influence of alcohol or other substances. But, clearly, racism is not entirely a stranger to our institutions of higher learning.
Last week, we expressed our hopes for the tenure of W&J’s new president, John Knapp. Maintaining efforts to increase the diversity on campus and make all who come to W&J feel welcome should be atop his to-do list once he takes charge in August.