On Monday night, Student Government Association (SGA) President and College senior Raj Tilwa and SGA Vice President and College junior Max Zoberman provided a forum for students to voice their concerns to SGA and several deans of the University. Overall, the dozens of cries from students of color spoke to the larger truth that our institutions of higher education are not truly integrated. Sadly, less than 10 percent of the over 100 community members in attendance were not students of color. Yet, these students, specifically European-Americans, make up a majority of the Emory population and must understand and accept that integration is not the equivalent of desegregation or assimilation.

Emory desegregated in the early 1960s primarily in response to the threat of losing federal funding. Many students, administrators and trustees preferred an Emory without African Americans. Then University President Walter Martin complained, “I am a little fearful of throwing open every school and the College to the Negro at one time,” when speaking of “gradual desegregation.” Even Emory’s beloved and “progressive” former University President Atticus Greene Haygood believed that the liberal arts education had “little use” to the “Southern Negro.” He believed African Americans should stick to “industrial training.” A true and effective trailblazer of integrationist thought would not emerge at Emory until the arrival of James T. Laney, president from 1977 to 1993. In 1989, he asked, “Whose common good is our goal? White males? Protestants?” He understood that the future of higher education was moving away from viewing “education as exclusive.” Simply, he set the “tableau of diversity” at Emory, which likely created the more global-minded environment that finally nudged the culturally exclusive University to remove “In the heart of dear old Dixie” from the University’s alma mater in 2001. However, the verbal exchanges at “Community Conversations” provided great evidence that Laney’s moral leadership and example has not effectively brought about the truly multicultural and inclusive campus or classrooms that he envisioned for the University.

Politically Correct SGA Reps Bewildered

SGA representatives opened up the “Community Conversation” with an awkwardly scripted but confident statement to those gathered at the event. They called for “real lasting progress” and “effective change.” Yet, this optimistic cadence would give way to a weak and powerless tone after an Emory N.A.A.C.P leader and College sophomore Chelsea Jackson questioned why SGA representatives wrote “SGA Stands With Black Students at Emory” in the subject line of a campus-wide email but used the broader term “students of color” within the entire body of the email. The SGA representatives swiftly and blatantly admitted that they were “unprepared” to deal with the concerns of African American students and other students of color.

“We understand that we don’t understand,” Zoberman said. Zoberman’s closing comments included, “Don’t trust us” and “Remain skeptical.” He seemingly understood that student demands for a more inclusive environment at Emory have rotted in the file folders and minds of Emory leaders and administrators for decades. He reasoned that students of color had no reason to “trust [SGA]” now and should merely hold SGA “accountable” if they expect them to meet their needs. Students demanded there be better representation on the committee to select the next University president. As the only student on the committee, Tilwa was expected to voice their concerns about the lack of diversity within the committee. Tilwa, appearing disheartened, revealed that he was lost about the whole process. He admitted that he didn’t know much about his role on the committee or the logistical aspects of the committee itself. How can “effective change” take place if no leadership really understands “what’s going on?”

Students of Color Speak Truth to Power

Students of color presented many tangible demands and supported each other with snaps, claps, laughter and words of encouragement. They wanted “real” cultural awareness courses and events to supplement the University’s general education requirements and orientation. One student even called for a modified move-in policy for students of color, referencing similarities between marginalized students of color and international students.

Students called for the University to take aggressive and fair actions against racial micro- and macro-aggressions on campus. Students called for more faculty of color, specifically African American faculty, and challenged the University to offer additional financial resources to these faculty members and other multicultural student groups on campus. Other students rebuked the Goizueta Business School’s lack of cultural programming, while other students were disgusted that the University was discontinuing the Hughes Undergraduates Excelling in Science Program. Finally, student after student told stories of racism and ineffective leadership on campus. Overall, the message was, “Emory is a house, not a home. The leadership needs to make it our home, too.” Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life Ajay Nair expressed that the movement’s objective fit into Campus Life’s “broad goals,” and Campus Life is with us.

A Stuttering Dean and Our Eurocentric Curriculum

College Dean Robin Forman was very reluctant and visibly uncomfortable about speaking to students at the event. He said that he didn’t want to “be the center” of the conversation though there was no evidence that anyone was making him the “center,” when he only answered two questions during a two hour event. After I asked him if the University’s curriculum was Eurocentric, he responded, shaking and stuttering, “Absolutely!” He also stated that there “is a lot to be ashamed of in our [University’s] history.”

However, he contended that most universities have a Eurocentric educational model in the United States. According to Forman, faculty members have brought this topic up and have tried to make courses with a more “global perspective.” He provided no clear examples of this effort. On the other hand, he partly blamed the faculty for the Eurocentric curriculum because “faculty changes slowly.” Thus, the curriculum changes slowly. He also found it “shameful” that we lack a truly diverse faculty.

One student said, “Our high schools are Eurocentric and our colleges are Eurocentric.” Black History Month, she claimed, was the “only time” her school even bothered with the histories of African Americans. Not only do students of color miss out on their histories, European-American students miss them and often find themselves ignorant of important issues in college. When one adds that the histories of African Americans are limited to colonial slavery, the structural oppression that followed our emancipation and the national resistances that African Americans waged throughout the 20th century, we are left in the dark about our histories of our ancestors beyond their interactions with Europeans. If modern human beings emerged in eastern Africa around 200,000 B.C.E., and the white-skinned ancestors of modern Europeans didn’t emerge until 40,000 years later how in the world do we limit people of colors’ histories and global significance to a time of Western domination, starting in 1492, that has only characterized 0.02615 percent of human history?

One international studies major from Puerto Rico found that all of her major’s courses are grossly culturally biased and dismissive of her homeland. She pondered how she had never had the opportunity to learn about Puerto Rico when it’s right “in America’s backyard” and functionally “a colony” of the United States. Though our country has used the code-name, “territory,” to describe its 16 land possessions, these places’ representatives have no voting power in Congress.

Du Bois Taught Me

It is an unequivocal experience, this “double-consciousness,” this experience of constantly judging one’s mode of existence by the socially constructed standard of another, of measuring one’s subjective experience and phenotype by the “tape” of a Western society that lives on with amused condescension and apathy toward the “Other.” People of Color, we are eternally ripped apart by the duality of our being within the decaying, offspring empires of various European “Crowns.” Psyches still colonized, our ancient respect for the Earth battles with the West’s neglect and abuse of the planet. Within melaninated bodies, a value of harmony wars with laissez–faire individualism, artificially selected self-hatred battles a naturally selected will toward self-preservation and love, and our desire for an inclusive knowledge system to call our own wrestles with our urge to give up and accept our Eurocentric Academy’s claim to reason itself, monopolizing knowledge and our ability to survive in a corporatized world in the process. We, the descendants of the colonized, neglected and exploited, have had enough.

This movement is about finally ending Eurocentricism in higher education and bringing in more University scholars and leaders of color. Less than seven percent of the faculty is not enough. Integration is more than accepting our music, dances, jargon and style of dress. Integration is about recognizing our scholarship, origins and human dignities and incorporating them into our curriculum. This movement is about European-Americans still continuing to call African American students “niggers” and even questioning our presence at campus events nearly two decades into the 21st century. This movement is about holding those “champions” of Emory’s “global hub” of learning and inclusivity accountable. This movement is a response to how those same champions have historically responded to various ethnic groups on campus in noticeably different ways. This movement is about urging those in positions of leadership to wage an aggressive campaign, through education and discipline, against racial micro- and macro-aggressions on campus. These are the steps toward true integration at Emory, not just desegregation, and eventually American society.

If you think this movement is about what the Wall Street Journal has labeled “crybullies” in the face of the First Amendment, you’re missing the whole point and don’t have a wise heart that seeks knowledge. If you don’t believe that this movement’s goals are in line with the logos, pathos and ethos of this University and country, we encourage you to send your evidence-based responses to the Wheel.

TJ Greer is a College senior from Huntsville, Alabama. 

TJ Greer
+ posts