DANIEL PAYNE -
ASSISTANT EDITOR | The College Fix
IMAGE: iQoncept / Shutterstock.com
Minority-only
housing will ‘assist in making the College…more welcoming, supportive and safe’
The editorial board of
a campus newspaper has endorsed a student proposal to establish segregated
housing on campus, claiming that such housing will help make the school “safe”
and “welcoming.”
The Coalition Against
Racist Education Now, a coalition of activists students at Williams College,
recently released a list of demands “calling upon the College’s trustees to
fulfill their ‘obligation to the well-being and safety of its students, faculty
and staff’,” according to The Williams Record.
Among those demands
was a request for “affinity housing,” what the editorial board of The Record describes as “the organization of
student housing around common identities.”
The board goes on to
declare that it “wholeheartedly support[s] establishing affinity housing at
the College,” specifically segregated housing for nonwhite students:
As a community, we
must recognize that the College is a predominantly white institution in which
students of color often feel tokenized, both in their residences and more
broadly on campus. Establishing affinity housing will not singlehandedly
solve this problem, but it will assist in making the College a more welcoming,
supportive and safe community for minoritized students.
Anticipating the
objection that segregating nonwhite students might not be the wisest choice
from an equity standpoint, the board writes:
Some say affinity
housing reinforces division, arguing that having minoritized students cluster
in one space would be harmful to the broader campus community. We believe,
however, that allowing for a space where students can express their identities
without fear of tokenization or marginalization will encourage students to
exist more freely in the broader campus community, rather than recede from it.
The editors also claim
that “there currently exists a de facto system of affinity housing” on the
campus already, citing “the predominantly white, upper-class athletes who
reside on Spring Street and Hoxsey Street during their senior years.” (However,
the board notes that “these off-campus homes are rented on the private market
and not a part of the housing lottery system.”)
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A Reader’s Comment:
roccolore :
It's funny how Democrats love to lecture everyone else on diversity while
advocating the return of segregation.
