Letters to the Editor | Diversity 'dialogue' reveals campus apathy

As a response to some disturbing incidents of exclusion and cowardly acts of hate that have recently taken place on our campus, President Catharine Bond Hill herself, along with the College’s administration, decided to hold a community forum on Wednesday, Jan. 30 to discuss the issues of inclusion and diversity on our campus. After attending the event and having the opportunity to engage in this “dialogue” with my fellow peers, I have come to the sad conclusion that the College is failing to tackle these issues effectively, and that the sense of exclusion felt by a large portion of our student body is completely justified.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the forum was its shameful attendance, a clear manifestation of this campus’ apathy toward the issue at hand. Although a large portion of the administration was present, the only students there were a few student leaders and varied members of different minority groups, awkwardly sitting in a vast sea of empty seats. I kept asking myself: Is inclusion only important to those of us who feel excluded? Where were the white, straight, upper-class individuals who comprise the vast majority of our student body? And more importantly, why, (although I understand they are not directly affected by some of the incidents of exclusion we continue to experience time and time again), do they show no interest in addressing an issue that has become all too prevalent on campus and that deeply affects some of their fellow peers? The forum served as a painful answer to this question: They don’t care.

Even more painful was the silence of the administration, whose incompetence became clear in the inability to respond to the demands brought up by those of us who did make the effort to show up. Students repeatedly voiced their discontent with the lack of concrete action taken in the past and present, pointing out the evident fiasco of talks (such as the forum itself) that attempt to discuss the issues without offering clear, viable solutions and that fail at reaching the broader campus community. At one point, one of the students directly asked administrators what they planned to do, expressing her discontent at the constant “talking” about the problem with no real results. She faced nothing but cold stares and a chilling sigh of shame from a fellow student in the audience.

As Vassar continues to awkwardly “discuss” issues in meaningless, poorly attended forums, incidents of hate like “KKK” being written in the basement of Strong House and two more nooses showing up in Rockefeller Hall continue to plague our campus under the impunity of a community that does not hold its members accountable for, at the very least, pretending to care.

—Luis Trujillo ’09, Main House President