In the wake of the recent horrible assault against Daisy Lundy, student and faculty activists alike have criticized the University community as a vestige of intolerance that is steeped in bigotry and riddled with racism. At an "Agenda for Action" rally last week, Anthropology Professor Wende Marshall denounced the University as a "bastion of white supremacy" and derided the "plantation" mentality that pervades the Grounds. A document drafted by the Coalition demands that the Administration take immediate institutional action to remedy the "deeply destructive racial divisions" that plague student life at the University. Impassioned proposals have run the gamut from increasing funding for minority programs to establishing an "Office of Diversity & Equity," to stepping up racial preferences in hiring and admissions policies.
These reactions to the recent assault are as dangerous as they are absurd. The overall racial climate here at the University does not nearly resemble the plantation attitude that many have so ridiculously espoused. Sentiments of racial intolerance are decidedly outside the mainstream in this community, and students overwhelmingly reject bigotry, at least on an intellectual level. You could not find one student in a thousand who would condone, much less carry out, a racially motivated assault like the one against Lundy. The subtle racial problems that persist among University students are driven not by hatred or supremacist views, but by self-segregation and mutual misunderstanding between students of different races. These problems simply cannot be solved by any administrative action, which is only likely to exacerbate existing divisions by creating even greater barriers along racial lines.
So what type of a "bastion of white supremacy" could Marshall possibly argue that we are living in? Five out of our last ten Student Council presidents have been black. All of us are blessed to be able to learn from intelligent faculty members of all types of racial and ethnic minorities. Our Admissions Office actually discriminates against white applicants in favor of racial and ethnic minorities that are deemed excessively needy. We have one of the highest rates of minority graduation and retention in the country, not to mention an Office of African-American Affairs, an Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and a vast array of active multicultural student organizations. To label our fine institution as a "bastion of white supremacy" is a cheap and pitiful tactic of emotional manipulation that hasn't the slightest basis in anything resembling a fact.
Even worse, this deceptive statement is only one of many carefully crafted to rally support for proposed "administrative action" that promises to improve race relations around Grounds. Should this action be implemented, it will cause many more problems than it will solve.
What the administration really can do to help diffuse racial problems on Grounds is not to pay more attention to the race of its students and faculty, but less. University-sponsored equal opportunity programming, multicultural initiatives and minority support offices can't engineer racial harmony among students, because they fail to engineer respect among human beings. Until administrators quit their obsession with the racial makeup of their students, the students themselves will never be able to do so.
As it stands now, the University treats its students differently according to their race from the moment they apply for admission until the day they receive their diplomas. The Admissions Office sets different standards for applicants based on race so that artificial differences exist along racial lines well before new students even arrive in Charlottesville. Once they do finally arrive, first years of different ethnic groups are immediately singled out for separate orientation programs. Students who happen to be black receive information on where they can get race-specific social and academic support, as do other minorities. University officials encourage and even instruct individuals to attend certain events held exclusively with members of their own racial groups.
After these students have been admitted and oriented to the University in racial separation, the puzzling process continues. They find a host of de facto segregated student groups that are strongly fostered and encouraged by University officials, ostensibly in the interest of supporting diversity. There's the Black Student Alliance, the Latino Student Union, the Asian Student Union and even the Black Fraternal Council, which provides a social system for black students that is completely "separate but equal" with respect to the Inter-Fraternity Council. Even full-fledged University institutions such as the Office of African-American Affairs offer support to students on the basis of race.
Given this annual segregatory hack job perpetrated at the hands of the administration, it would be an absolute shock if the student body were anything but racially divided.
To make actual progress from this pathetic point, we must first realize that we do not inhabit a plantation and that white supremacy does not have a hold over the University. Then we must acknowledge that the subtle racial divisions that do exist can only be overcome when individuals start respecting each other as equals, regardless of race. Instead of relying on heavy-handed institutional action to achieve this goal, administrators might start by treating individuals as equals, regardless of race. All students must be granted the fundamental right to define themselves as individuals on their own terms, free from coerced conformity or the imposition of group identity.
But if the University acquiesces to reactionary demands and increases both funding and enthusiasm for programs that differentiate among students on the basis of race, then racial progress can only hope to take a giant leap backwards.
(Anthony Dick is a Cavalier Daily opinion editor. He can be reached at adick@cavalierdaily.com.)
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