Spring term, less than 13 percent of University students identified themselves as ethnic minorities. Around the same time, the Oregon Students of Color Coalition reminded our campus that there are five University departments with no tenure-track faculty members of color.
Most agree that the University has some serious work to do in the quest for racial diversity. Unfortunately, most solutions produced thus far have been ineffective.
In at least one instance, the University used legally questionable means to foster diversity in lower-division English and math classes. Classes taught through the Office of Multicultural Academic Services reserved spots for students registered as ethnic minorities, thereby making those classes unavailable to non-minority students until the first day of class.
University administrators changed that policy this summer, allowing students involved an any OMAS program priority access to the smaller classes.
The Emerald applauds this decision. Holding class spaces for racial minorities to ensure a level of diversity may provide a comforting environment for students who feel marginalized, but such a policy is unfair.
As pointed out by non-minority students, the law says that discrimination based on race is discrimination based on race, even if that race is white. A University that engages in racially charged administrative decisions is just setting itself up for trouble, and it should come as little surprise that the U.S. Department of Education is now conducting an investigation.
Regardless of this change, the time has certainly come to critically evaluate how our University deals with diversity.
As explained by the Emerald Editorial Board last spring, the University’s Five-Year Diversity Plan simply is not feasible. Greg Vincent, then vice provost for institutional equity and diversity, provided the University with a series of good ideas rather than a solid guide for future action.
The diversity plan was even called “frightening and offensive” by some University faculty members. Vincent’s document was strong in its promotion of the term “cultural competency,” especially when evaluating faculty seeking tenure. When the diversity plan fell short of defining cultural competency, faculty members understandably took a stand to protect themselves from judgment based on such abstract, subjective criteria.
After the administration rejected the first draft of the plan, Vincent himself admitted that many of the plan’s recommendations needed to be “revised and refined.”
A university is an institution dedicated to education and fostering cultural and worldly awareness. In such an environment, it is key that everyone involved has an equal opportunity to achieve. Answering potential racism with a series of policies that are either impractical or possibly illegal and racist in themselves, is no way to create diversity.
Editorial
Daily Emerald
September 27, 2005
0
More to Discover