Equal Opportunity

What do you want for the future of U.Va.?

If your vision includes diversity, you may be in trouble. There are people at this University who don't share your vision, and they have a lot more money and power than you do.

These dire warnings, though, aren't news to a significant portion of the population. Recruitment directors have known for years that the university's commitment to minority concerns is unsettled at best. But the recent attempts to reorganize the Office of African-American affairs have brought these problems to the forefront, and what's come out is far from the glossy 8x10's they show in the President's report. The truth is, the resignation of Equal Opportunity Program director Simon Brown will probably be just the beginning of a massive departure of African-American faculty and staff.

Their disappointment with the administration's attempts at multiculturalism are rooted in years of precedent. When Virginia was one of the last states in the country to order desegregation, U.Va. was one of the last state schools to comply. A large part of the university's compliance involved the creation of an equal opportunity program to ensure the fair practice of affirmative action by recording complaints and overseeing hiring procedures. At the time the office reported directly to the President. The program was able to accomplish its goals despite the fact that it is both an agent and a watchdog of the school.

As time progressed, however, interest and support for the program waned. The responsibility for the EOP was reassigned to human resources, the department in charge of university hiring -- and the very department they were supposedly monitoring. When the number of discrimination complaints dropped because people were understandably afraid of losing their jobs, U.Va. pointed to those statistics as an example of improved race relations.

But perhaps the most devastating blow to the future of the EOP at Virginia (and perhaps U.Va.'s commitment to diversity in general) came only a few years ago, when the state rescinded its court ordered desegregation. The school no longer needed to promote affirmative action in hiring or even continue the Equal Opportunity Program. Since then, the school has repeatedly rejected minority recruitment initiatives like mandatory diversity training or the formation of a Vice President's office dedicated to multicultural concerns while publicly promising support.

The heart of the problem is that the administration, in a sense, pursues two contradictory agendas: their stated goal of diversity and the seemingly more pressing need for private support. The probable majority of alumni who contribute to programs like the Capital Campaign graduated from U.Va. in the fifties; the active promotion of multiculturalism might even discourage some from donating to the school. As the state continues to cut its funding for higher education and private donations become essential, the concept of diversity may well just slip through the cracks.

The school as a whole, not just the administration, has shown a general lack of enthusiasm on the subject in past years, tending to take the attitude that a university as established as Virginia should attract minorities on its own merits. But as the resignation of Simon Brown and Ron Price (Engineering Minority Program director, who verbally resigned just this Monday) has shown, those efforts really aren't good enough. Right now, even though only 5 percent of the administration and 3 percent of tenured faculty are African-Americans, U.Va. doesn't even have a statement of its future goals. So let's make a promise, right here. If every student at the university promises to make the inclusion of all minorities a priority, someone at the Capital Campaign might listen. Then maybe the university could finally welcome everyone in Virginia.

Kate Zimmerman

Viewpoint consists of the majority opinion of the managing board of The Declaration and is written by the executive editor on a weekly basis.