On Wednesday, Feb. 6, just six days earlier, over 100 students filled Paresky Student Center’s Henze lounge at Williams College to discuss intolerance on their campus. The event came just four days after racist epithets were found in a student dormitory, but turned into a series of testimonials on the challenges of creating unity amidst the increasing diversity on campus.
Though divided by 60 miles, one spot in the rankings and plenty of antipathy, both Williams and Amherst Colleges have been spurred to action in the past month by incidents of intolerance. In both cases, the incidents served as an impetus for starting a campus dialogue on inclusion, discrimination and self-segregation on campus.
The Williams’ response followed a racist incident on Feb. 2, when the N-word was found written on two common room door signs, according to the Feb. 20 edition of The Williams Record. In addition, a number of penises were drawn along the stairwell.
“While I can’t compare Williams’ response to Amherst’s, it’s clear that the racist incident in the first-year residence at Williams had a galvanizing effect on our students, especially a core group of student leaders who really had the energy and focus to bring students, faculty and staff together,” said Dean of Williams College Karen R. Merrill. “Senior administrators certainly worked somewhat with these students … but the students deserve the credit for leading some excellent meetings, breaking into subgroups to work on concrete issues and for communicating their plans to the entire campus.”
Put side-by-side, the two campus responses are telling of the similarities and dissimilarities between the two schools, as they both grapple with maintaining a tolerant community amongst an increasingly diverse student body. “When you make a concerted effort [for diversity], it creates tensions and challenges for the students and the administration,” said Mike Reed, Vice President for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity at Williams.
For Amherst, the “Be Heard” event on Feb. 12 was the one and only public event on campus intolerance, and it came several months after the GAP assault incident. The event was delayed for a number of reasons. For one, winter break and Interterm got in the way. In addition, according to Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Center for Community Engagement Danielle Hussey, the event followed a series of organizational meetings by the Martin Luther King committee. It was a deliberate process and it took a while to get the panel and logistics set.
For Williams, the Feb. 6 discussion was the first of several events put together by “Stand With Us,” the campus group led by two former College Council Presidents that emerged after the racist incident. In addition, the group held a meeting the following day, organized a campus-wide rally the following week, opened up a space for online “testimonials” off of the college Web site and started a blog.
“It would have been disrespectful of us as leaders of the campus if we did not acknowledge how much this violently prejudicial act affects the community. Ignoring so much pain is not justifiable,” Kim Dacres ’08, a leader of the Stand With Us campaign, said at the first campus discussion, according to the Record article.
Several ideas emerged from the two days of campus discussions, Reed said. These included working with faculty to have a whole day of school allotted for teaching about intolerance, finding ways to engage the entire community in the push for tolerance and inclusion, be it sports captains or Junior Advisors (Williams’ Residential Counselors) and exploring the institution of a social honor code.
Reed said the honor code would be “something that says we have certain expectations for how we behave and treat each other as a community … [It] sets expectations and standards for behavior.”
In the most public display of concern, close to 600 Williams students participated in a rally in which they marched around the campus and signed a “Pact Against Indifference and Hate.”
According to Amherst Student Affairs Officer for Diversity and Academic Support Rachel Cardona, the followup to the “Be Heard” event at Amherst is quietly being formulated. “At this time we are unprepared to discuss any particular recommendation until we receive feedback from all parties involved,” Cardona said. Since the event, there have been meetings with event panelists, moderators and other administrators. Today, the student leaders who helped organize the event will meet and discuss what next steps the school should take. Eventually, according to Cardona, a report of recommendations will be submitted to Marx.
AAS Senator and “Be Heard” moderator Nick Pastan ’09 cautioned that Amherst must be careful to capitalize on the moment and not let all the talk go to waste. “There are a lot of interested and concerned students on this campus, but so often we have trouble putting that passion and concern to action,” Pastan said, “We really need to capitalize on the things that students are so passionate about.”
Denicia Cadena ’10, senior co-Chair of La Causa, was frustrated by both the format of the “Be Heard” event and the subsequent lack of action. “The discussion was almost entirely dominated by stories about negative experiences of individual students. While this may have been compelling, it distracted from the tough issue that should have been at the forefront of conversation—how to engage in direct action,” Cadena said. “Although the ‘Be Heard’ discussion was framed as a community-building event, many of the struggles that students, faculty and staff face in an increasingly diverse community are considered in isolation because Amherst does not provide the institutional support needed for the common struggle of creating an inclusive campus atmosphere.”
Hussey said the College is taking a deliberate approach but insists that results will come from all the talk. “I think there are a committed group of people who want to see that this effort carries on, and I think that it’s too important to peter out.”