Universities confront bias with programs

National Catholic Reporter, March 29, 1996 by Gustav Spohn

Indeed, recent studies suggest that the dominance of white cultural norms on the typical campus are so deeply ingrained -- undergirded by a complex web of symbols, religion, language and organizational structures -- that any challenge to the status quo must address issues' at a root level and go beyond the question of numbers. It's not always easy. For Catholic institutions, that can mean grappling with traditions that sometimes appear at odds with the multicultural agenda, such as the role of women.

Fairfield's Mazon recalled that the university chapel lost a number of women who were affiliated with it when women were denied a place at the altar during a dedication ceremony.

Fairfield University didn't make that rule," he said, "but because we're Catholic we had to deal with that rule. ... That creates a problem for people who are members of this community who have women who are their colleagues."

In general, though, programs are helping. Ehrlich, director of the institute in Baltimore, said he has seen a number of "incredibly good' programs on campuses around the country. But he warns against attempts to simply replicate or transplant programs.

"Part of the problem is that colleges and universities have different cultures" he explained. "And so what will work, say, at Fairfield will not necessarily work at Oklahama State. And so you can look around and see what's going on elsewhere. But the chances are you're going to have to adapt it to the subculture of your own school."

Even with carefully constructed programs in place, cultural clashes are unlikely to vanish.

Marin, who is of Puerto Rican descent, recalled a recent session at Fairfield where she and other AHANA students were reading some of their writing. Unfortunately, she said, a university benefactor in the audience "insulted all the AHANA students there reading their works" by calling their writing "from the gutter."

The critic, Marin noted; had failed to appreciate that the writing reflected the real-life situations of the AHANA students. Some of our writing has swear words, some of our writing is very much. a dialogue of what we live through," she said.