Over the past few weeks, both a column published in The Heights and an opinions piece written for The Observer have generated an uncharacteristic flood of letters to the editor, online comments, and panel discussions. Conversations about race and the role of student media have flared into life across campus.
The controversy began on Sept. 14, The Heights published an article titled "BC Graded Low on Race Relations." The news article reported that Boston College ranked 17th in a Princeton Review list of schools with "Little Class/Race Interaction."
In the Sept. 22 issue of The Observer, an opinions piece titled "Can I, as a Caucasian, Be a Part of Your Group?" was written by Observer Opinions columnist Marion Halftermeyer, A&S '13. In her column, Halftermeyer discussed "ethnic packs" and her perception of the lack of diversity and racial commingling at BC. Michael Reer, editor-in-chief of The Observer and A&S '10, said that the Observer executive staff did not read the opinions piece until after it had appeared in print. "Megan Rauch [Observer Opinions Editor] saw it, and she made a decision to run it even though we didn't necessarily agree or disagree with it," Reer said.
Reer said that this piece arose from discussions about BC's poor ranking in the Princeton Review. "We thought it would be a good idea to write an Opinions piece on what the University could do to address these issues better," he said. Halftermeyer was assigned the piece despite having been on campus for only three weeks as of the date of publication.
Reer said that the piece has received a lot of feedback from members of the BC community. Halftermeyer has been e-mailed by people angered by her articles with a tone that he said sometimes seemed vaguely threatening. "Like, 'Oh, I know where this girl lives.' Students who we're not sure if they just want to talk to her about it or perhaps be more aggressive," he said. In an effort to prevent further such communications with Halftermeyer, Reer wrote an "Open Letter" in the Oct. 6 issue of The Observer, in which he said that he hoped these efforts to reach the columnist would stop and that harassment would be reported to the BC Police Department.
"She has a right to go back to her dorm room at the end of the day and not worry about people knocking on her door," Reer said. "It's unfortunate that this is happening because I think she has a lot to offer the BC community."
In the Oct. 1 issue of the Heights, Tyler Hughes, A&S '12, wrote an Opinions column titled "It's time to be equal." Hughes said his columns are usually inspired by things that grab his interest and for which he has feelings either strongly for or against an issue. This particular column, he said, was inspired by several posters he saw advertising affirmative action programs at three universities, none of which were BC. Hughes said he was aware the column may spur reactions. "I think that I always want to get a reaction with something, and you want debate," Hughes said. "A lot of people didn't agree with this column, and they very coherently said, 'Well, this is why.'"
Hughes said he has been contacted by e-mail by about 10 people who wanted to engage him on his views. His piece, as posted on the Heights' Web site, has received about two dozen comments from people expressing a variety of views. Hughes said that he has welcomed the responses and the e-mails sent to him. "If someone wrote a column about how affirmative action is the greatest thing, I would send them an e-mail, too," he said. "I think the most important thing is to realize that this is an Opinions piece. Affirmative action is a race issue whether you are white or black."
Debate about these issues has not been restricted to The Heights' Web site, e-mails to the columnists, or the editorial pages of either The Heights or The Observer. Students have been discussing these issues, and student leaders, administrators, faculty and staff have said that they are willing to participate in the conversation.
"I think it really boils down to students stepping out of their comfort zones,"
Erika Hernandez, ALC vice president and A&S '11
Earl Edwards, AHANA Leadership Council (ALC) president and A&S '10, and Erika Hernandez, ALC vice presidentand A&S '11, said they were disturbed by both opinions pieces when they first read them. "I think that 'Can I, as a Caucasian, Be a Part of Your Group?' is very different from the affirmative action piece," Hernandez said. "My feeling is that affirmative action is necessary." She also said that the limited space of an Opinions column was not appropriate for the complexities of the issues involved. "I think that you can't cover an issue like that in a short piece," she said.
"I read the pieces right after they were published," Edwards said. "My immediate reaction was of frustration, because the opinions that the authors had were ignorant and skewed in many ways." He said Hughes' piece on affirmative action showed a lack of understanding about the historical need for affirmative action. He also disagreed with a line in which Hughes described minorities as "lucky." "That word is very wrong," Edwards said. "Affirmative action does not make minorities lucky, and to say that is very wrong."
He said that Opinions columnists should be held to a certain level of factual correctness when expressing their views. "It's one thing to have an opinion," Edwards said, "but it is another thing when that opinion is very skewed and contains misinformation."
"I think that in the BC community, a lot of people are upset, and people I spoke to, both AHANA students and non-AHANA students, were offended," Edwards said. Hernandez said that these pieces, not through the issues they raise but from the problems she sees in them, are evidence of why BC needs to deal with issues of race on campus. "I think all of these articles demonstrate that BC has a race problem," she said.
Hernandez said that part of this problem has to do with misunderstandings about the purpose of culture clubs, the ALC, and other groups. "I think that to many student leaders, there is an understanding of what different groups do," she said, but that the average student may not have a similar comprehension of the reason these groups are on campus. "I feel like if BC is not providing students with information, then why should we be surprised by an opinion like that?" Edwards said of the Opinions pieces. He said these issues are not solely AHANA issues, but rather University issues.
"We create a very safe environment, and we
create ground rules that people don't cross,"
William Charnley, FACES member and LSOE '11
William Charnley, FACES member and LSOE '11, along with John Reynolds and Kevin Harvey, both FACES co-directors and A&S '10, said FACES works to facilitate discussion about race issues on campus. They too said they were frustrated with The Heights and The Observer when they came out and were frustrated with them. Harvey said that Hughes' pieces only acknowledged one side of the issue. "He only acknowledged the white perspective," Harvey said. "It was very vague and never got into the underlying issues. It made me question whether if maybe we had more dialogue, and maybe we could have more education about these issues on campus."
"There are probably a lot of students on campus who would agree with Tyler's article," Charnley said. "We don't live in this equal world, and affirmative action still doesn't make the world equal." He said the publication of these pieces may have made it more difficult to address issues of race in some ways. "It feels like when things like this get published, it just makes the issue more polarizing, and then the discussion that needs to happen can't happen," Charnley said.
Harvey said that sometimes it is difficult to reach those students uncomfortable with talking about issues of race. "How do we reach more students?" Harvey said. "With a lot of the programs we run, we see the same faces. However, if one new person comes to an event, that's one more person that we've reached," he said.
Reynolds and Charnley, neither of whom are AHANA students, said that they decided to become involved in FACES after witnessing racial inequality on campus. "I got involved," Charnley said. "I joined the council sophomore year because I had gotten frustrated with some of what I had seen at BC."
Harvey said that FACES works to be open to students of both AHANA and non-AHANA backgrounds, and to draw all students into their discussions. "We extend our hands to pretty much everyone at BC, and it comes down to the fact that some people just couldn't care less," Harvey said.
Reynolds said that this is part of FACES' initiatives for the year, an effort to connect to members of the student body who might not be aware of the council's work. "Part of what we're doing as an organization this year is finding new ways we can reach out to people," he said.
Charnley said there should be discussion about race on BC's campus and among the student body all the time. "It shouldn't take a controversial piece that offends people to talk about race," Charnley said.
Harvey said discussions about racial issues on campus can begin at orientation, before freshmen even arrive on campus. "I was an orientation leader this past summer," he said, "And from that perspective there has been more effort to increase dialogues on these sorts of issues." He spoke particularly of efforts made by Gabriel Verdaguer, assistant director of diversity and student identity development for the Office of First Year Experience, to incorporate these discussions into the freshman experience. "His role in that office has been working on that piece," Harvey said. "How do we make these discussions more prevalent among students?"
"There are all sorts of discussions that could be continued from orientation into the school year," Reynolds said.
"How do we partner with others in a
meaningful way around these issues that
are problematic at Boston College?"
Karl Bell, assistant dean of SPO
Karl Bell, asistant dean of the Student Programs Office (SPO), has begun planning a panel to take place on Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. in the Murray Function Room. The panel will include four students, two faculty members, and a staff member, and is titled "Campus Racial Climate: Boston College Reflects."
"It's going to be almost an open discussion," Bell said. "There will be many concerns raised that will lead to, I hope, a much larger conversation, an ongoing conversation." Bell said that an open dialogue should surround issues of race, a style of engagement that is founded on ideals supported by, but not limited to, the Jesuit tradition. "First and foremost to be Jesuit is to be contemplative with others," Bell said. "We spend lots of our time and effort taking service trips to be men and women for others, and we don't realize that some of the men and women we should be there for are right here on this campus."
He said that deciding how people relate to these difficult issues often has to do with how they perceive otherness. "The other doesn't have to be poor people in Appalachia," he said. "Redefine other. When we do that, we realize quickly there is more to BC than doing excellent work."
He said that cultivating this attitude toward issues of race and otherness takes practice, but that a university environment is exactly the kind in which this practice can, and should, take place. "What better place to practice than a place where you are surrounded by faculty, staff, administrators, and other students who will allow you and encourage you to make mistakes," he said. "This is a laboratory to make mistakes."
Bell has Halftermeyer's opinion piece taped to his office door, alongside a flyer publicizing the panel on Oct. 26. "I study race, and so as one who studies race, I appreciate both this piece and the reaction of all students," Bell said. "The idea of, 'Oh, how could this woman write this, this is racist,' receives all the play. But the reality is that this is reality."
Bell said that he would like to see dialogue about issues of race gain a firmer foothold among students on campus. "The challenge for us is to foster a sustainable dialogue," Bell said. "I am going to begin urging and encouraging the 29 to reach out to the 71," Bell said, referencing the 29 percent of BC students who identify themselves as AHANA.
"I believe that the University has been exposed," Bell said. "Not exposed to, exposed as. As a place where these discussions are difficult, where these discussions are avoided, and where these discussions are detrimental to the University."
Bell said that members of the BC community have to enter uncomfortable territory when confronting issues of race. "In our neverending search for the truth, we can't only go down those paths familiar to us," he said.
"I was very offended. When I first read
that I was at the AHANA Caucus, and when we
all read it together we were fuming,"
Jillian Long, director of UNITY for the UGBC and A&S '12
Jillian Long, director of UNITY for the UGBC and A&S '12, said that she was very upset by the pieces in The Heights and The Observer. "I don't understand how a freshman who has been here for three weeks can comment on the racial climate," she said. Long said that she objected to the language of the Observer piece, which qualified AHANA students as "magnets," and said that they congregated in "ethnic packs."
"I believe that people should be able to publish editorials about race, but they don't have to be so offensive," Long said.
Al Dea, UGBC president and CSOM '10, said that he does not think the points raised in the Opinions pieces are new to BC. "I think that within the AHANA community, people have been talking about this for a long time," he said.
Both Dea and Long said that campus papers have some place in confronting issues of race. "I think that the newspapers reflect the voice of the students," Long said. "If they feel that there is an issue on campus, it should be vocalized." The Opinions section of a paper, she said, can be a place where students express their feelings in a productive manner. "It's like a little debate in the newspaper," Long said. "It's effective and not violent."
Dea said that the role of campus papers may differ among themselves. "I think that it depends on what the value and the interest of what each newspaper is," he said. "I think that campus newspapers do and should play a role in campus discussions."
"One of the best lessons and experiences that students have is to be media-makers themselves,"
Jamel Bell, professor in the communication department
Jamel Bell, professor in the communication department, said that students have been discussing the two Opinions pieces in her classes, as well as the reactions that they have generated on campus. She said the spectrum of opinion ranges from outrage to accord. "I think there is anything from concern to surprise to agreement on some level, and probably anger as well," Bell said.
She said that an important step toward having productive discussions on campus about racial issues is for students, and other members of the community, to make themselves more comfortable with the idea of the discussions, or to at least become comfortable with being uncomfortable. "I think we can have some of those discussions by first letting our guard down," Bell said.
The Opinions pieces, she said, may be a good starting point for these types of discussions. "There are some valid points," she said. "We'd be very naive to suggest that there aren't some problems or concerns with affirmative action. There is validity to it as long as it leads to something beneficial.
"I think there are some serious issues at BC that have been bubbling and that we have yet to address." This bubbling, and subsequent boiling over, is not helped by the responses the University generally implements to deal with discontent about racial issues. "I think we have to do something different," Bell said. "I think we have to be creative. Panel discussions are a band-aid, they're a way to turn the heat down." Bell said that while these remedies may give the appearance of engaging with a problem or concerns expressed, they do not get to the underlying issues but simply suppress them until they boil over in another incident.
"I used to say to my classes that if you go through the entire semester and don't experience discomfort, I should be fired," she said.
"One of the things that I want people to
realize is that this is a teachable moment,"
Sheilah Shaw Horton, Dean for Student Development
Sheilah Shaw Horton, associate dean of the Office of the Dean for Student Development, said that the response among students has made her think about the place of student newspapers on campus, and that she plans on convening a panel to discuss the role of such publications. "I think that over the years students have read the articles in the newspaper and felt powerless to respond," Horton said. "They are not sure why certain articles are being addressed in the campus newspaper, and especially recently, with these articles, it is a good time to have a conversation of what is the role of the newspaper.
"It is the student response to the recent opinions columns that has made me think about this. I think that clearly students are reading the newspaper, and that is always a good thing, and they are talking to each other about it. I would just like to channel it to a positive direction. I think that those of us who are interested in students getting the best learning that they can from this particular incident are trying to be creative. How do we help students to get the most out of it? That's what people are really thinking about."
"Boston College, like all universities, should be a
place where the issues of the day, such as race
relations, are discussed in an open and civilized forum,"
Jack Dunn, University Spokesman
University Spokesman Jack Dunn said it is the job of good newspapers to put forward opinions even when the pieces may cause conflict. "Their obligation is to be factual and civil, but they should be the catalyst for getting the wider community to consider these issues," he said. He said that a university is dedicated to the "pursuit of truth, freedom of discussion, and open discourses," and that these ideals are essential to every university's mission.
"At Boston College, as at all colleges and universities nationwide, there are issues of race that emerge that cause us to examine what we are doing and perhaps what we need to do better rather than shy away from the issues we need to address," Dunn said. "Those conversations are most productive when they occur with open, civil discourse."
"I guess I would just say that he
[Hughes] had so many strong opinions, but
it wasn't researched closely,"
Okello Carter, A&S '12
Okello Carter, A&S '12, along with Khloe Scurry, CSOM '12, and Christian Carranza, A&S '10, said that though they are leaders of culture clubs on campus, they wanted to speak as individuals rather than as representatives for their organizations.
"In reference to the one in The Observer, it is surprising to see a freshman show such strong opinions after only three weeks," Carter said. Scurry was particularly offended by the language the same Observer piece used to describe culture clubs.
Carranza said that the Observer piece considered only how a non-AHANA student may feel uncomfortable when encountering culture clubs, but not how an AHANA student may feel uncomfortable when in a minority position.
Jennifer Liao, Asian Caucus president and CSOM '10, said she read the Opinions pieces when they came out in their respective issues, but that she gave herself a chance to evaluate her thoughts before speaking about them. She said that she considered the language used in the Observer piece "degrading and animalistic" in the way it spoke about AHANA students and culture clubs.
She said that there have been discussions within the ALC about how best to respond to the pieces. "We discussed it in the ALC Executive Committee," Liao said. "Earl [Edwards] felt it was necessary that the University put out a statement about how we value these culture clubs on campus, that they bring a great amount of worth to the BC community, that they are not token groups."
She said that students who identify with any background would benefit from attending culture club events. "It would really broaden your horizons," Long said, "and you would learn much more about the world beyond the walls you currently have."
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