Students, faculty and staff at Elon University converged today to discuss the matter of diversity on campus in the wake of an incident of racial and religious bias.
The forum was not only a response to the incident in which a Jewish student and a black student found a swastika, the letters “KKK” and male genitalia drawn on a whiteboard outside their dorm in Colonnades D. It was an effort to address the causes of the acts of discrimination and bias that have occurred on campus during the last several years.
“The culture of apathy is part of the blame for something like this,” said sophomore Bobby King. “We’re showing outrage with forums like this, but I still fear we’re going to have more events like this because more will come and we won’t have the proper response unless we take direct action.”
Several students challenged the administration’s response to the most recent issue. Junior Bashi Oudmeyer asked why students and faculty members weren’t immediately notified of the incident. Recently, Elon changed its policy of emailing all students, faculty and staff members when incidents like this occur.
“We determined that sending notices to the campus in every situation often raised anxiety and focused unwanted attention on members of the very groups subjected to the bias and disrespectful behavior,” Smith Jackson, vice president for Student Life, wrote in a recent email. “Communicating each incident may also reinforce the very behavior we wish to prevent. Each situation must be handled individually in accordance its unique circumstances.”
Brooke Barnett, interim associate provost for inclusive community, expanded on Jackson’s explanation.
“I hear people saying that a notice to campus community will make people care about the incident,” she said. “I say that’s not true. This is not an effective means of communication. It may be for communication of facts, but what do you have to do to not have people be apathetic?”
Senior Immanuel Bryant identified with the idea that the emails could be upsetting to some students.
“I call it bias response fatigue,” he said. “Getting those emails that someone has been called gay, called a n-----, called a fag, I felt that was me. Each time I got an email was damaging. I didn’t want the emails anymore. I just got tired. I got tired of having to deal with this, alone, when we’ve been fighting this battle for two or three years.”
But senior Sarah Holland argued the emails may provide students with information that affects them personally.
“Because I’m not black and I’m not Jewish, people assume that I wasn’t affected (by the latest incident),” she said. “I have devoted the last two years of my life to studying the holocaust…and I was offended because I had family members who were in the KKK. You’re not always going to know who is affected.”
Several administrators prompted students to weigh in on how the university could better handle incidents of bias. Many suggested implementing diversity education and anti-defamation courses or tests into the Elon curriculum. Others asked for greater transparency into the policy-making process related to issues of diversity.
The discussion shifted to the role students play in fostering an accepting campus environment.
“College represents the real world,” said junior Greg Zitelli. “When (bias incidents) happen, there isn’t a mass Smith Jackson email that goes out to everyone. We do have to be proactive. We are reminded on a regular basis that discrimination isn’t not gone. It hasn’t faded away. When you graduate, it’s still going to be on your shoulders to reach out to the silent majority who don’t care.”
Junior Alisha Carter reminded the participants that only a small percentage of the student body attended the forum.
“There are probably a lot of people who wanted to come but couldn’t, but some people aren’t going out of their way to engage in this conversation,” she said. “We each have a powerful voice. We’re all involved in some type of organization and we need to tell our friends this is something we’re standing up for.”