Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Teach Diversity Now

In the days that followed the publication of a cartoon in the Georgetown Voice depicting then-GUSA presidential candidate Chris Wadibia (COL ’16) being beaten by other candidates, sudents filled St. William’s Chapel at a town hall organized by the Black Leadership Forum this past Sunday. There, students testified to their own experiences with racism and reinforced the imperative to educate.

This may have been best exemplified by the attendance of Dylan Cutler (COL ’16), the cartoonist, who stood among his peers and unequivocally apologized, stating that his work came not from a place of malice but poor judgment.

While the declaration does not justify the genesis of the cartoon, and the numerous editorial failures that resulted in its publication, Cutler’s self-reflection was appreciated, and points the university and its student body toward a path of growth instead of punishment.

Nearly every speaker at the town hall rallied around the hypocrisy that, while the university mandates that students take certain core curricula classes — beyond the university-wide theology, philosophy, and humanities and writing classes required of all incoming freshmen, individual schools’ vague and asymmetric general education requirements mean most students usually take courses such as “Principles of Microeconomics” and “Introduction to International Relations;” there is no “Introduction to Race Relations” or diversity-based requirement.

While courses dedicated to race and ethnic studies — primarily in the sociology department — can fulfill certain requirements, students are not currently obligated to take one. Such a course is necessary for a desperately needed increase in awareness of race on campus — and nationally, in light of current events.

The need for a diversity requirement, one just as ingrained into the Georgetown curricula as “Problem of God” and “Introduction to Ethics,” is an imperative. This is not a radical idea, but rather one that has already been in place at many of our peer institutions, including the University of Chicago and Cornell University, for many years.

While several students, organized on social media as “The Last Campaign for Academic Reform,” have been hard at work on this issue for years now — it is time for the entire university community to get behind this effort.

A solution cannot be reached without the support of students, faculty and administrators. While the town hall hosted a self-selecting group of campus leaders, the onus is on our entire community to educate ourselves and prevent incidents like these from occurring in the future.

One of the most pressing things missing from our current approach is dialogue. This is not for lack of an involved, knowledgeable and well-spoken student body. Every day we see Georgetown students rally behind immigration rights, environmental issues and on-campus housing.

In contrast, the absence of widespread student activism on race issues is jarring, but stems from a lack of knowledge of the issues at hand.

Students should be just as well-versed in our nation’s history as pertaining to race as they are in current affairs, and just as capable of being concerned with these milestones as they are in ticking off the Dow’s closing numbers.

We are not perfect. From poorly worded headlines to an offensive 2008 April Fool’s issue, The Hoya recognizes that we too have something to gain from increased education.

Without the benefit of hindsight, editorial decisions, such as those that led to the publication of the cartoon, are not clear-cut, but responsibility cannot be pushed away or dismissed due to a lack of knowledge about these important issues. Campus media plays a key role in the dissemination of information, and is thus charged with doing so responsibly.

A Georgetown degree confers a number of things — the inculcation of and respect for Jesuit values, a global education and social justice. A diversity requirement has the potential to confer something more — the ability to conduct dialogue on difference in a way that conveys respect and knowledge of our shared experiences.

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  • E

    Eau de ContraireFeb 24, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    How do you rally around a hypocrisy? What is “vague” about a list of classes that you have to take? What is hypocritical about having certain core requirements and not others?

    I’m all for increasing exposure to social justice topics, but two more required classes on top of the existing core curriculum? Ouch. Also, let’s be realistic about what these classes will look like if every single person has to take them. It’s Problem of God, but for diversity-40 kids stuck in a class that half of them don’t want to be in, having boilerplate discussions about cliched topics, with the same few people dominating the discussion by having what they think are really profound revelations.

    And what happens when somebody disagrees? It’s not like Problem of God where you can tolerate disagreement. In today’s world, not agreeing with the accepted position on diversity automatically makes you a horrible person. Is some poor freshman who doesn’t “get it” going to get put on blast in his/her first ever college class for not being hip with the latest social justice talking points and terminology? What is somebody says something “problematic”? What if somebody gets triggered?

    Finally, for all the social justice talk, consider how the class will end up being taught: Georgetown is only going to teach two classes to every single student by bringing in an army of underpaid, exploited adjuncts. We know that this kind of model makes the university more corporate, adds to the glut of starving academics who get taken to the cleaners by schools, and leaves the workforce more contingent and insecure.

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  • B

    BurrFeb 24, 2015 at 1:38 pm

    “Nearly every speaker at the town hall rallied around the hypocrisy that, while the university mandates that students take certain core curricula classes — beyond the university-wide theology, philosophy, and humanities and writing classes required of all incoming freshmen, individual schools’ vague and asymmetric general education requirements mean most students usually take courses such as “Principles of Microeconomics” and “Introduction to International Relations;” there is no “Introduction to Race Relations” or diversity-based requirement.”

    This sentence suggests the meeting wasn’t about any real offense being given, but was part of a campaign, that goes on each year, to foist a “diversity” or “multicultural” course requirement on the student body. One wonders whether certain professors in certain grievance industry affiliated departments and programs each year try and find some easily brain-washable students to lead these efforts for them. After all, it’s job security, more financial resources, and an opportunity for more power to control junior professors, and advance their ideological goals.

    A “diversity” course for all students will never be implemented because instead of making it an option for certain types of students to waste their own time taking a course, the university would now force the entire student body to waste their time (and tuition dollars) taking such a course. The outcry would be immense. Especially when these professors, who are likely to be all be ideologically the same and hostile those who disagree with them, start giving low grades to students who reject their thinking. The potential outrage by students and their parents (and perhaps even a lawsuit or two) is enough to keep the Administration from implementing such a requirement.

    The fact is, despite what the headline says, diversity is taught at UG. You get what you get in NSO, there are various courses dealing with it, they’re plenty of brown bags and speeches, every week the Hoya or Voice will publish something about it, and there’s even a special office for it and a diversity coordinator, along with a bunch of other diversity initiatives to placate people. But a required course will never happen.

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  • S

    SFS '05Feb 24, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    Given the Maoist self-criticism session that immediately ensued after this “offensive” cartoon was published (in what I assume still is the farthest left campus paper, natch), it seems like Georgetown students are already well on the way to having been reeducated according to The Hoya’s recommendation.

    Seriously, the concluding wish for a “dialogue” about race is rank hypocrisy from an editorial celebrating the suppression of speech (coupled with an article that apparently could not find a single voice of concern or dissent about what happened). A dialogue is not furthered by shouting down unpopular language (or drawings) and demanding that everyone instead follow a scripted p.c. narrative. In the wake of recent events in Paris, Copenhagen, and elsewhere, it’s too bad Georgetown’s “newspaper of record” is unwilling to stand up for freedom of speech and expression on its own campus.

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