Author: Sarah Dunlap
Students and faculty filled Johnson 200 to discuss issues of diversity, equity and campus climate Tuesday, April 3 in the first Town Hall meeting of President Susan Prager’s tenure. Triggered by recent flares of stereotyping, tension and vandalism on campus, the meeting attempted to open discussion and take initial steps towards solving some of the factors that stymie a cohesive college community at Occidental.
Members of the audience took turns explaining the problems that concern them including heterosexism, racism and political intolerance on campus. Many contributors also characterized the tone of college discourse as combative and hostile towards those who disagree with the campus majority. In her opening remarks Prager said that she aims to quell campus tension and help foster an open, accepting atmosphere.
“[There have been more] inappropriate comments to individuals than I expected to hear in a community of this quality,” she said. “[I want to] chill that kind of speech. We all do our best work when we’re in a community and when we’re feeling supported.”
Prager stressed the danger of stereotypes and demonstrated the tendency of students to stigmatize their peers by listing groups she believes are commonly labeled at Oxy. “Athletes, people who live in Pauley, conservatives, whites, blacks, people of color, gays, lesbians, well I could go on, but I think you get the idea,” she said. “We’re in this mode of assumption that we can categorize people and that’s that.”
Philosophy Professor Kory Schaff spoke first, and while he shared Prager’s concerns he strongly discouraged her from regulating student speech. “My major concern is also with campus climate, but it’s a little bit with the way we approach the issue,” he said. “I do have a warning and a cautionary tale that it is not the job of an academic institution to police the views of others.”
David Reynolds (senior) agreed that the Administration should not “police” students’ language but recalled the defacement of his car, which he found with homophobic slurs scrawled on the sides. “They allowed a fifth-year senior to graduate at the end of his term. It bothered me. It really boggled my mind. [. . .] I guess I’m a CTSJ minor, I guess I’m armed and dangerous.”
Schaff attributed the climate troubles in part to students who use knowledge and class lessons to attack one another rather than engaging in rational, respectful conversation. He called this practice “poisonous to the public environment.”
“While I am a big fan of critical theory, and I consider myself a critical theorist, I don’t think the point of learning about these things is to go out to the public quad and interject them and accuse people of different forms of oppression against one another,” he said.
Others spoke with similar ideas, criticizing the arguments that some believe have supplanted civil conversations. “One of the biggest problems with campus climate is that we don’t know how to sit down and talk to each other about issues,” Devon Puglia (junior) said. “When someone says something that is perceived as ignorant on campus [… . .] the response is often very alienating. It is very easy on this campus to label someone as a racist or a bigot without actually understanding their perspective.”
Sergio Arteaga (junior) agreed that conversations between students are often antagonistic and rarely compromising. “Students are the ones not willing to listen,” he said. “There’s no listening going on.”
While some audience members criticized the student body for its apathy, multiple speakers highlighted the tenacious work that some students have poured into maintaining a diverse and accepting campus. Caroline Kim (senior) underscored these contributions.
“I just want to make sure to recognize that there are people on campus who are doing a lot,” she said. “I think when we talk about campus climate [. . .] we’re doing this because we care about this community, because we care about Oxy.”
Jessica Simes (junior) agreed and responded to Arteaga’s comments by describing her own work at the Intercultural Community Center (ICC) and concern for the state of Occidental’s community. “For you to call students out like we’re not doing anything, I think that maybe you don’t have any idea how much students contribute,” she said. Simes said that the focus of conversations on campus should be adjusted to discuss diversity as a concept rather than a number.
“As far as diversity as a percentage, diversity for me is about quality of life and it’s about mutual respect, and it’s not some kind of ratio of white students to non-white students, it’s not a space where we can count the students of color in the room.”
Student response to the meeting was varied, though most agreed that the Town Hall was a positive first step to resolving campus issues regarding diversity and climate. Patrick McCredie (sophomore) said that while the meeting was a move towards the right direction, it did not propose any solutions.
“I felt the dialogue was constructive and relevant to the campus concerns warranting examination at Oxy,” he said. “However, if the discussion had one shortcoming, I felt the meeting ended without any tangible resolutions or proposed plans to address the concerns expressed throughout the dialogue.”
Stephen Bent (junior) agreed that dialogue is integral to spur change but stressed that the majority of the community was absent and could not benefit from the exchange.
“It should be acknowledged that the heart of the campus climate issue lies not with the kind of people who would attend such a discussion, but the kind of people who wouldn’t,” he said. “Thus, the Town Hall Meeting fails as a campus-wide dialogue, but succeeds as a springboard to inspire further action.”
While Teresa Brabant (first-year) felt that Prager considered all input equally and appreciated the diversity of comments, she observed that many students were unwilling to budge from their original viewpoint.
“I felt through the meeting that some students may have been holding on too tightly to their own opinions and failed to be open to the ideas of others,” Brabant said. “[This] really may be what this conflict all boils down to: an insatiable desire to be completely right. In my opinion, this is not a clash of right versus wrong, but of two opposing sides that are both partially right.”
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