The past few years the University of Michigan has been under fire
for their undergraduate student body’s lack of diversity. As the nation is
dealing with many problems involving race, our own school was dealing with the
same, being documented in local newspapers as well as making national
headlines, like in the Huffington Post “#BBUM Hashtag Sparks Dialogue about Diversity at the
University of Michigan”. I would hope that a leading school would
realize that a diverse and overall varied student body would help the
educational and accepting atmosphere at our university. Unfortunately, that
does not seem to be the case.
Through talking with students on campus, the democratic failure of
diversity seems to be vast and causes MANY harmful feelings, actions, and perceived messages being sent. Not having a
diverse student body as well as not having diversity in the leaders of the university promotes exclusion and ultimately worsens the University of
Michigan. The problem with the University’s lack of diversity starts at the
top, something I had not even thought about until a student I interviewed
pointed it out to me. I realized there was a problem with the lack of inclusion
in the undergraduate body, but not with the people in power. What does that say
about me? What does that say about the university? Are they trying to fix the problem? Hawkesworth
illustrates how a lack of equal representation in power can have permanent and
unfair consequences.
Is everyone represented on the University of Michigan campus, does
everyone have a voice? No. As outlined in Mary Hawkesworth’s Congressional
Enactments of Race- Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions,
lack of representation is a lack of democracy. (Lecture Feb 18) In
Hawkesworth’s writing, she talks about how having few women of color in
Congress makes it hard to have fair and representative democracy. “Their
stories of marginalization and thwarted effort, of the silencing of reason and
evidence, and of the pervasive racing-gendering of welfare recipients and
Congresswomen of color provide a resounding indictment of this form of majority
rule.” (546 Hawkesworth)
Students
on campus feel "marginalized"
as well. How can their voices be heard when there is no one that reflects their
interests in a position of power at the University? Hoai An, a sophomore
in LSA, recounts what she sees and feels as a Vietnamese woman on campus and
how she feels her voice is very rarely heard, “I think there needs to be a
change in the R and E requirement. So many people take it lightly, I think
speakers need to be brought in, it is too easy to blow off [race and ethnicity]
when you don’t see it.” The race and ethnicity requirement has been talked about being changed, but has it, no. When
asked why she thinks there is hesitation and very little change, "Hardest
thing is to change the mindset of those in executive positions, everyone in the
top place is white and that sets a standard." She continues on “I think the
university has a problem with women of color just [be] cause even if you look
at like, the people in executive positions, nobody is a woman of color, if they
are a woman, they’re not of color. I don’t even know the last time, or ever,
we’ve had a woman of color as the president and I feel like that really sets a
standard for how things are done.”
According
to the University of Michigan Office of Registrar, out of 26353 undergraduates,
17370 are white. Over half of the undergraduate population is white, so all
other minorities make up less than half of the undergraduate student body.
(University of Michigan, Office of Registrar 2015 Undergraduate Enrollment)
President Mark S. Schlissel, office of the president, biography
The board of regents has 6 white people and 2 black people, is that fair? Furthermore, there has
been one black president in the school’s history and he was an interim, and one woman. How can a school expect to be progressive when the leaders are not? Are
the leaders really “the leaders and best”?
So what needs to be addressed here? What needs to be done? The university needs to find a way to be overall more accepting, inclusive, and diverse.
So what needs to be addressed here? What needs to be done? The university needs to find a way to be overall more accepting, inclusive, and diverse.
Edited on March 26, 2016.
Byng, Rhonesha. “#BBUM Hashtag Sparks Dialogue About
Diversity At The University Of Michigan.”
Huffington Post. November 20,
2013. Web.
Hawkesworth,
Mary. 2003. “Congressional Enactments of Race-gender: Toward a Theory of
Raced-gendered Institutions”. The American Political Science Review 97
(4). [American Political Science Association, Cambridge University Press]:
529–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3593022.
University of Michigan, Office of Registrar. Ethnicity
Reports, 836U:
Undergraduate Enrollment by School or College, Ethnicity, Class Level, and
Gender
2015. Web. http://ro.umich.edu/enrollment/ethnicity.php
University of Michigan, Political Science 406. Lecture. February
18, Hawkesworth Peer to Peer Presentation Slides. https://umich.instructure.com/courses/63254/files/folder/Lecture%20Slides?preview=1183688
University of Michigan, Board of Regents. 2016. http://www.regents.umich.edu/about/bios/
University of Michigan, Board of Regents. 2016. http://www.regents.umich.edu/about/bios/
University of Michigan, Office of the President. 2016. https://president.umich.edu/about/past-presidents/
Kuang, Bryan. "LSA Frum critiques Race and Ethnicity Requirement". The Michigan Daily. November 17, 2015. https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news/lsa-race-and-ethnicity-requirement.
University of Michigan, Office of the President. Biography, 2016. https://president.umich.edu/about/biography/
Kuang, Bryan. "LSA Frum critiques Race and Ethnicity Requirement". The Michigan Daily. November 17, 2015. https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news/lsa-race-and-ethnicity-requirement.
University of Michigan, Office of the President. Biography, 2016. https://president.umich.edu/about/biography/
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteI found this post very interesting because of your top down approach to diversity. It also hadn't really occurred to me that we should start top down when we focus on university diversity, since most discussions around campus are student body diversity based. I also found your post interesting because it is similar to my own blog series. I focus on misrepresentation and diversity from a bottom up approach; whereas, you focus on diversity from a top down approach. Ultimately, I think both approaches to this glaring university issue need to be taken to achieve a diverse student body and administration.
I think student body diversity may be the more important issue, though. Creating diversity at the top is good, but I don't think we should expect that diversity will trickle down into the student body when there is diversity at the top. As you mentioned, 25% of the board members are black. Minority voices on the board are represented in a larger proportion than in the student body (~10%), yet the university still struggles with minority enrollment. I think major focus needs placed on student diversity first, through programs like affirmative action, before administration diversity is tackled. But, race-conscious affirmative action is constitutionally banned in the state of Michigan, so other creative programs similar to affirmative action need to be pursued. It's a complicated issue, but I like how you address it in your 2nd post with the promotion of diverse speech on campus through enclaves.
John, thank you for your feedback! I understand what you are saying about the student body makeup needing to be addressed first though. I think the issue is that in ever area of out university there is an imbalance that has up until recently been accepted as the norm and that needs to change. I just feel like the University comes off as hypocritical if we are saying that we need more diversity and representation when the person saying this is a white man (Schlissel) and the person sharing that sentiment before him was a white woman. It is hard and feels like a never ending cycle that the University has to break. I agree with you though that student solutions need ti constantly be a topic of focus and promised to rectify the issue.
Delete