The University has something of a troubling history with racial and ethnic integration. The University's first black student graduated 56 years ago, though there were only a marginal number of black students on Grounds until the 1970s. In the decades since, a more comprehensive notion of diversity has taken hold; University administrators frequently tout the number of Asian, Hispanic, Native American and international students in each year's entering class. Sexual orientation and socioeconomic diversity are also now on the University's radar.
But for all the strides that have been made, many students still sense a few vestiges of the University's less-than-hospitable past. Accusations of self-segregation abound on Internet message boards like College Confidential, and occasional alleged hate crimes have led some students, officials and even faculty members to question the University community's social tolerance.
This all forms a legacy that the sponsors of current diversity initiatives must consider. Monday night, student leaders from different organizations across Grounds met to discuss the Cross-Cultural Leadership Initiative, a new program launched by the Office of the Dean of Students. The initiative is co-sponsored by Student Council, the Minority Rights Coalition, the Honor Committee, the Office of Diversity and Equity, the Vice President for Student Affairs, the Latino Student Alliance and the Middle Eastern Leadership Council.
"The goal of this project is to help bring better collaboration between cultural organizations and the larger University community," stated Rebecca Bukele and Alissa Morein, Office of the Dean of Students interns, in an e-mail to student leaders. "As non-cultural student groups, we often operate as separate entities from the cultural organizations despite many of our best intentions and efforts."
The immediate focus of the initiative seems to be to encourage the co-sponsorship of events between organizations. Council Vice President of Organizations Colin Hood drew a parallel between the CCLI and the contracted independent organization leadership project announced recently by Council. "This one has more of a focus toward cultural programming," he said. "The focus is on bringing these people together to network, to have new conversations ... to maybe ignite some new ideas that haven't been talked about before."
Co-sponsoring events is a logical way to have these organizations start working together; it does not require a major commitment from any of the participating groups. In fact, the primary requirement for co-sponsoring the initiative itself simply was to express interest in doing so, according to the e-mail. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that this collaboration will result in the meaningful changes for which most cultural groups advocate. The governing and judicial student bodies - like Council, the Honor Committee, the Inter-Fraternity Council and so forth - will have little incentive to substantially alter their practices without taking additional steps.
The CCLI could be successful insofar that it engenders some basic contact between cultural and non-cultural student organizations. This contact could in theory provide the foundation for more extensive interaction in the future. However, it does not appear that this initiative's framework allows for the kind of sustained pressure that would drive organizations to address the most significant cultural issues on Grounds. For example, certain minority groups want the Honor Committee to substantively address "spotlighting," a trend that indicates minority students and athletes are brought up on honor charges more frequently than their peers. This kind of issue seems beyond the scope of the current project.
So far, those promoting the CCLI appear to have kept their expectations modest. They have stressed the desire to see collaboration among student groups in the form of event co-sponsorship. For a short-term objective of that nature, this initiative seems appropriate. If the CCLI is intended to lay the groundwork for genuine progress in the relations between cultural and non-cultural groups, however, a different approach should be taken. All too often, event co-sponsorship and initiatives meant to engage student leaders are all talk and bring about few concrete results. Should history hold true, the CCLI will not address the more serious concerns of the minority community. It will not apply the needed pressure to bring about institutional change, nor will it approach meaningful dialogue.
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