Now while most people are rightly pointing out the dangerous concept of villainizing first amendment freedoms, there was actually another quote of hers that stood out to me.
Too often we go time and time again without having professors, mental health staff, different staff members who look like us sitting on our campus. (emphasis mine)So my question is, how is that not racist?
In a situation in which the entire conflict arose from supposed lack of racial sensitivity on the part of university administrators, is this kind of statement not incredibly hypocritical? This indicates that these students are not comfortable with faculty and staff of other races, but instead want ones that match their own race. I cannot think of another term for that mentality besides racism.
For contrast, imagine George Wallace on the schoolhouse steps in 1963 saying something like:
"We need our children to be able to go to school and have faculty, staff and administrators that look like them."
Such a statement would have, rightly, been condemned as one of the most racist sentiments by a public official since Reconstruction. Yet from a young woman representing an entire population of, supposedly, very racially sensitive young people, such a statement is (I guess) considered perfectly acceptable.
I recognize that people may be more comfortable relating or interacting with people that have similar backgrounds and cultures. But I thought the whole point of diversity was to break such enclavism and promote greater racial understanding by encouraging inter-racial interactions. As such, her concept seems to fly in the face of the diversity movement itself.
Now I'll admit I'm not fully knowledgeable on the ins-and-outs of racial matters. So I'm open to any explanations of how her sentiment is NOT basically racist and anti-diversity.
