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12:41 am - November 19, 2003 OK folks, so here is the article I wrote for the alum magazine for my school. Please send me thoughts, feelings, suggested edits, etc.? Beyond Diversity On a recent visit to campus, I spoke with a student working vigorously to understand how the xxxx College community could best work together after a difficult town hall meeting where diversity issues were key. I couldn’t help but remark that the current campus community was facing many of the same challenges we faced when I was at xxxx College. I began to wonder if this challenge and the tension over “diversity” was just part of modern campus life that was inevitable and whether the term “diversity” was even adequate for discussing issues relating to safe communities or the desire for a campus that challenges oppression while welcoming a chorus of voices. These challenges are definitely not new. When I was at xxxx College, from 1990 to 1994, we struggled with diversity issues as well as with raising consciousness about campus sexual harassment and sexual assault. The group of students I worked with held town meetings, symposia on race and gender, and numerous speak outs and forums. We talked with faculty and administrators, worked with campus offices, and in general just kept talking and listening to one another. Some folks in this group also began the Gender Studies Resource Center, a collection of books and magazines purchased from student funds or donated by students and others that supplemented the library’s holdings with vital texts to study gender, sexuality, feminism, and race. We were a community with a community pursuing justice and devoting time, energy, and resources to making the campus a safer place and a place where we could more adequately learn about one another. And I was changed deeply by this time at xxxx College. Arriving at xxxx College in 1990, I barely knew that women wrote great books or that there was deep history in the movement to end discrimination against gays and lesbians. I was not aware of how farm workers had been oppressed and exploited or of the depths of discrimination faced by many immigrants and refugees. I also had never engaged my peer group about our different identities as people of different genders, gender identities, races, economic and cultural backgrounds, and philosophies. xxx College allowed me the opportunity to learn about these and other issues outside my scope of knowledge and about people not like me. Best of all, through trusting relationships and being open to education and to teaching others, I learned a lot about justice and equality and how we can organize to create change. My time at xxx College taught me crucial lessons about hearing others into voice, about deep listening, about speaking in ways that were challenging, but as inviting as possible. As the community kept talking, and as we kept pushing one another forward, it did seem like we made a difference. Increased attention was paid to women’s and gender issues, students had forums to discuss sexual harassment and assault or race and gender politics, and in general, it seemed like the discussion was pretty positive and that we all learned from it. Were there still differences of opinion rooted in firm political and intellectual difference? Absolutely. Was there an increase in the number of students of color or faculty members of non-European decent? Barely at all. I couldn’t help but feel that there often were not enough people at the table committed to making positive changes towards a diverse community. But it appears that the campus has made some progress. I was surprised to see the variety of the current clubs and organizations at xxxx College. There are groups for different racial, ethnic and cultural groups, religious organizations, as well as a host of focused political groups allied to particular ideologies or national parties. Diversity issues are discussed in student publications, among the students, the Board of Trustees, the Alumnai Association, and the student government. In short, we are all talking. It seems that the conversation is ongoing, but I am not certain if we are working from a shared set of goals? I am also not sure there are magic answers for what would make xxxx College a place of warm and welcoming diversity. I do know that in addition to the unique educational opportunities at xxxx College, I enrolled because I saw people like me there. I saw out of the closet lesbians and gay men and signs of an active progressive culture. I stayed because I had wonderful educational opportunities and was continually supported and challenged by my peers. I wonder if folks looking to see themselves reflected in the faculty and the students feel the same way I did upon my arrival? I think we also must acknowledge that sometimes we do know the people around us very well. We have listened to them on their terms, and find ourselves in deep disagreement. I can listen to and understand the viewpoint of those opposed to rights for gay, lesbian, transgender, intersex, and bisexual people, but I cannot participate in my own oppression by making concessions to their drive for policies that say I should not have children, marry, be protected at my job, or have the ability to inherit my partner’s property. Likewise, I believe that diversity alone is not worth pursuing without a firm commitment to challenging oppressive policies, ideas, and structures that keep people hidden or treat them as lesser. There are definitely other sides to these coins. The challenge being, how does a community remain committed to the ideals of vigorous debate while agreeing to disagree and still encourage freedom of speech and freedom from oppression? At xxxx College I also learned that it was possible to work to end systems of privileges and oppression without feeling guilty about my dominant role in some of those systems. I live in a country where the government, corporate leaders, much of the clergy look more like me and are more likely to share the experience of being part of the dominant culture than not. I am sometimes in the minority because I am an out gay man or because I am deeply committed to uncovering and ending structures of oppression. But I am who I am. I don’t feel bad about it at all. But I do have the opportunity each day to think about and understand how that privilege plays out. How I can work to hear others into speech who have been less vocal or whose stories have not been told? What advantages in attention, cultural and institutional support, and economic or education resources do I have more access to because I am a white man? There is honestly more to consider on these issues than can fit in the newsletter or in this one article. I just know that I care deeply about the xxxx College community and believe that alumnai can be vital resources in helping xxxx College in this area. For now, my experience leaves me with a series of questions. I am sure others out there have questions as well. 1. Is “diversity” a precise enough term? 2. Is their room for a vigorous debate of issues and ideas without engaging in behavior that is discriminatory, oppressive, or threatening? If not, why not? 3. How does a community value and respect voices of significant personal difference? 4. What role can alums, administration, and faculty play in encouraging diversity, equality and justice for the student body, and faculty? 5. What is already happening that works and what needs to be changed or challenged? 6. Is the goal of diversity education and hearing once silenced voices to realize how we are the same, different, both, or neither? 7. What will be tolerated and not tolerated in a community committed to diversity and communal education? Is physical, personal, and intellectual safety a common goal of the xxxx College community? If so, how does that look? We welcome your thoughts or feedback to this article. Please write to the editor at ___________ We will share some of the responses in a follow up piece.
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