NO TWO words have been more fetishized by the University community than "tolerance" and "diversity." Through endless performances of carefully choreographed public displays and earnest public moralizing, the? ubiquitous narrative of diversity and tolerance works to assure us that this institution has been cured? from the corrosive effects of the prejudices of yesteryear. Ultimately, the performance of spectacles highlighting the values of "tolerance" and "diversity" at the University do little more than obscure the silent social realities that fester underneath the warping language of this discourse. ?
University students become familiar with diversity discourse from the time they set foot on Grounds. After sitting through numerous paeans to diversity during Fall orientation, incoming students learn that the University not only has a Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity, but also an institution devoted to the values of diversity and tolerance in the Kaleidoscope Center for Cultural Fluency. Although these individuals and institutions work toward vital and admirable goals, many student lose their message amid the esoteric language of diversity discourse. One of the most visible examples of the dissonance between the public espousal of tolerance and the reality of life at the University can be found in the bowels of Clemons library. Hidden from the condemnations levied by purveyors of the narrative of tolerance, anonymous writers scrawl sexist, racist and homophobic tropes across bathroom stalls.
Crudely drawn swastikas and messages such as, "fags suck" ? are depressingly common sights for students taking a break during a late night of studying at the library. Although the image of a disgruntled racist etching bigoted messages into a bathroom stall while sitting on the john is disarmingly absurd, it says much about the unspoken values held by at least a portion of University students.
While the bathroom stall rantings could be dismissed as the work of an anti-social? minority of University students, the shortcomings of "diversity" discourse can also appear in more subtle expressions of racial, sexual and gender identity barriers. Indeed, almost every aspect of live at the University, from working to partying to studying, is segregated along these lines. .
Although these divisions usually go unarticulated, aside from periodic controversies over dorm choice in first year housing, they are immediately recognizable to any student at the University. The point of highlighting this issue is not to demonize student practices, but rather to show that the widely accepted rhetoric of diversity is not matched by the actions of students at the University.
Although members of the University community usually utilize diversity discourse in a well intentioned manner, by doing so they unintentionally gloss over thetrue roots of the social rifts that divide the University. Diversity discourse largely ignores the more subtle ways in which racial, gender, and sexual identity constructions affect the attitudes and practices of students at the University. Among the mostly fair-minded students at the University, these divisions do not derive from bias but instead from unspoken cultural assumptions that divide standard from the "other," the white from the black, the "straight" from the gay. Instead of examining the sources of these divisions and questioning the assumptions that support them, diversity discourse offers a weak criticism of the amorphously defined sin of "intolerance" and a vague call for an appreciation of social differences. Within this framework, the source of all divisions is a lack of the personal virtue of tolerance, and as such, it implies that student can erase social barriers simply by proclaiming the virtues of tolerance loudly enough so that it will be embraced by all students at the University. This approach not only appears esoteric to most students, but also fails to change attitudes since it does not lead students to examine the true sources of social divisions.
Moreover, tolerance discourse removes agency from socially marginalized individuals. Indeed, tolerance discourse implies that social progress can only be achieved when socially dominant groups repudiate their privileged position and embracing the doctrine of tolerance?. As such it removes socially marginalized individuals from the process of breaking down divisive constructions and reinforces the power of socially dominant groups by casting them as the primary movers behind social change. Because the discourse of tolerance grossly over-generalizes the sources of social divisions, it appears irrelevant to the lives of students at the University and becomes little more than a punch line.
While advocates are right to work toward erasing the social barriers at the University, they must move away from the discourse of tolerance and instead mount individual campaigns against the variety of constructions which divide individuals into the standard and the "other."?. By making their work more specific and more directly relevant to the lives of students, and by giving all members in the University community equal agency in addressing these problems, community activist can have a better chance of changing the culture of the University.
Adam Keith's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at akeith@cavalierdaily.com.
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