The Gonzaga Bulletin

Issue date: 9/22/06 Section: Opinion

Race is one of those major issues that can divide a society. Throughout the history of the United States, people have shown discrimination against members of races different from their own. All manner of wrongs, from simple prejudice to atrocious dehumanization of people from various ethnicities and races have been a part of America's past.

Yet, especially in the past century, advances have been made toward treating all people equally. More and more, people have been recognizing that an individual's race does not place higher or lower value on her worth. However, blatantly unequal treatment of people based on their race is still prevalent in our society, and this inequality is also found on Gonzaga's campus.

Anyone who attends Gonzaga can see that our campus is clearly not racially diverse. As of fall 2005, minorities represented only 13.59 percent of the freshman student population. Not wanting to appear to be a closed-minded, homogenous, exclusive campus, Gonzaga has instituted various programs to attract minority students to its campus, hoping to increase its credibility as a forward-thinking and globally aware institution.

Gonzaga instituted its "Summer BRIDGE Program" in order to increase its retention of minority students. The BRIDGE program, Building Relationships in Diverse Gonzaga Environments, is a summer "pre-orientation" in which incoming minority students are invited to campus a few days early in order to get to know one another, interact with upperclassmen minority students and be introduced to campus resources.

In other words, upon applying to Gonzaga, minority students are explicitly told that they are different. They are invited to come to campus early to hang out with other people "like them," implying that minority students are part of a vastly different population than the white students on campus and that they will feel more comfortable when set apart from the white student population. The BRIDGE program, while claiming to "build relationships in diverse environments," reinforces a barrier that disrupts relationships between minority students and the rest of the student population.

The real problem with Gonzaga may be its focus on forcing diversity rather than making the campus comfortable for people from diverse backgrounds. Centering on the word "diversity" focuses attention on people's differences. In my experience, pointing out how an individual is different from other people in a social setting does not encourage the individual to feel that she is accepted in that society. The BRIDGE program creates a divided campus rather than one which truly sees race as immaterial in an individual's place in society.

Segregating students into their racial groupings before they even begin at Gonzaga is a bizarre and ridiculous way of building relationships between people from differing backgrounds. In order for the Gonzaga community to abolish its white bread reputation and become a diverse campus, efforts must be made toward building a community that overlooks race and allows students to interact with one another. If differences are not continually pointed out, Gonzaga may become a less uncomfortable place for minorities, and diversity will grow naturally.

Andrea Crow is sophomore at Gonzaga.

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