Posted on 01/20/2004 11:27:47 PM PST by lewislynn
By TODD ACKERMAN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Aiming to fix strained race relations on campus, a University of Texas at Austin task force Tuesday called for a Cabinet-level diversity position, greater sensitivity by its Police Department and increased recruitment of underrepresented students, faculty and staff.
The task force's recommendations, contained in a 37-page report, were released a year after numerous incidents of racial insensitivity stirred up passions at the state's biggest public university. The head of the task force said the incidents weren't isolated.
"We looked at a lot of statistics and talked to a lot of people and found a fundamental problem is people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds don't understand each other," said task force chairwoman Darlene Grant, associate dean of graduate students and professor of social work. "Rather than just providing stopgap measures when issues arise, we hope to integrate racial respect and fairness throughout the UT community."
The report now goes to UT President Larry Faulkner, who appointed the 15-member task force last March after minorities demanded solutions to the racial tensions on campus. Faulkner said Tuesday he will take input for about 45 days, then develop a specific plan.
The incidents included the egging of the Martin Luther King Jr. statue on the national holiday; fraternity parties at which members wore black paint on their faces and mocked black images and stereotypes; and alleged racial profiling by a UT policeman who asked a black member of student government to show his identification in the student union.
The incidents brought more than 300 UT students, most of them black and Hispanic, to a forum hosted by Faulkner in February. The very same night in College Station, Texas A&M University President Robert Gates answered questions from about 200 students, most minorities, who expressed similar concerns about not feeling welcome.
Grant said the overarching theme of the report is a call for UT to better articulate the school's commitment to diversity and inclusiveness. She said broad issues need to be addressed if UT is to succeed in transforming its culture to one of racial respect, fairness and civility and inclusiveness.
To that end, the task force called for the naming of a vice president for diversity and equity whose role would be to promote and enhance diversity and inclusiveness throughout the university and initiatives to not only only recruit historically underrepresented students, faculty and staff but retain and promote them.
The report's section on UT's Police Department includes calls for increasing officers' skills at negotiating diversity and inclusion issues; greater emphasis on the department's commitment to racial respect and fairness as core values; and reviewing the department's definition of "racial profiling" as well as the steps being taken to eradicate such practices.
UT Police Chief Jeffrey Van Slyke, who noted that the department's internal probe determined that the racial profiling allegation was unfounded, said he is always looking to make strides to improve services but said he thinks "we do a great job." He noted the department provides diversity training mandated by the state and supplements it with its own internal training because its territory is a university campus.
The task force's other recommendations include:
·The creation of a comprehensive "honor code" that includes interpersonal as well as academic behavior. Greek and other student organizations would be required to abide by the code and demonstrate their commitment to diversity.
·Encouraging entering students to postpone pledging Greek organizations until the end of their freshman year so they can develop a broader range of experiences and contacts that could otherwise be limited by their participation in fraternities and sororities.
·Curricular changes such as the development of a required course on a non-U.S. culture, an ethno-racial culture of the United States, or a course that explores issues related to gender, race and class.
The task force, composed of students, faculty and staff, met 25 times before finishing its report.
Then they should have open honest communication, not "sensitivity". If a bigot says a bigoted thing to me and offends me, I call him out on the spot, face to face. Not "run to daddy", which is what women do.
Vice president of diversity??? Let me have that position, since it sounds absolutely useless, and I bet it pays six figures.
I can just see the findings now: "Whereas the law in some places once prohibited intermarriage btw the races, that was a bad thing. We now find that intermarriage between the genders is a bad thing, unlike intermarriage between persons of different races."
I think you're on to something here.
This task force appears to be composed of an abnormally high number of thissys.
Too much soy in their diet perhaps.
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