A Diverse Opinion
What would Lehigh look like if it were truly a diverse and equal community? The CEC (Council for Equity and Community) is looking to create that kind of community and it sees serious flaws with Lehigh today. The good news is that the CEC doesn’t discriminate – it sees racism in every single person at Lehigh. Students need more classes that explain diversity and a curriculum that works those classes into a student’s schedule. Faculty members need a “Social Justice Leadership and Service Learning” seminar. For the Administration, the CEC will be meeting with the deans “to identify plans in place to diversify the faculty and retain underrepresented personnel” and to print a “diversity statement” on all recruitment and application materials. Clearly, future students are racist too.
Of course, Lehigh is far from perfect and there are certainly ways in which Lehigh could be improved, become “more diverse,” and be a better place for it. However, the CEC has turned imperfection into a disaster and has provided a view of Lehigh as a systematically racist institution. Quite simply, Lehigh does not look like this. Lehigh has always been a place of religious diversity and over time it is becoming more and more culturally diverse. This is a natural process; as the United States becomes more diverse, Lehigh will as well. Even now, the Lehigh that I see is one that has isolated incidents of intolerance.
However, that represents a problem with several individuals, not the community as a whole.
In this case, it helps to look at the numbers to demonstrate the rarity of undesirable incidents. Last semester, there were two incidents of overt racist remarks, which resulted in a well-publicized and well-attended town hall meeting. It is reasonable to assume that if blatant racism were as common on campus as the CEC and others see it, then we would be inundated by it. But we are not, which is pretty good since there are almost 7,000 potential racists in our community. Perhaps this is because an overwhelming majority of Lehigh students are not racist. Let’s assume that there were 12 racist incidents on campus, involving 12 different individuals. Keep in mind this is six times the amount that we know about. Since Lehigh has about 4,800 undergrads and 2,000 graduate students regularly on campus, in this case, we would determine that 99.82% of Lehigh students are not racist.
Let’s take this estimate further. Suppose that for each of those twelve individuals, there are ten more people who harbor harmful racial prejudices, but keep that fact hidden. The campus is still 98.05% racism free. By similar logic, 99% of South Bethlehem residents are not interested in mugging Lehigh students and the odds that you will get mugged this year is less than one percent. Does this mean we ought to ignore the issues? Of course not. But we shouldn’t build a wall between Lehigh and South Bethlehem because of one percent and we shouldn’t overdose the entire University on diversity because of two percent.
It is very important for all Lehigh students to be informed of what the CEC is working on and what is happening on these issues. The decisions made today may not affect us, but do you really want to return to your 20th reunion to find mechanical engineers having to take a class entitled “Racializing Whiteness” instead of “Advanced Thermodynamics?” To help you stay informed, the latest CEC progress report, as well as Dean Raposa’s response to the resolutions presented at the town hall meeting, can be found on the Patriot’s website. You can be the judge of whether the level of intolerance at Lehigh (whatever amount you see it to be) is harmful enough to warrant the time, money, and loss of liberty that the CEC proposes.
It is an unquestionable fact that we are seeing a more and more diverse Lehigh each and every year. This isn’t due to policies put in place, diversity statements, faculty seminars, or classes focused on diversity. It is part of a natural progression in a country that is undergoing an extreme shift in ethnic makeup. Even if Lehigh had a problem with racial intolerance, it would be a problem that would fix itself in a relatively short period of time as minority populations grow. From a historical point of view, this is what happened in the early history of the United States – Irish and Chinese immigrants were discriminated against on the basis of their ethnicity. As their populations grew and time went on, these biases disappeared. It’s a natural progression and it doesn’t require diversity classes, social justice and service learning seminars, diversity statements, or a Council for Equity and Community.
