Um… isn’t that precisely what the OP asked?
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good thing. What do you think?
I agree. Also whether it’s a good thing for the college to implicitly encourage them to self-segregate. My position is that these are not good things.
Azael, you would expect the ethnic dorms to reflect diversity within diversity. Maybe so. Frankly, I would expect them to reflect an attitude of separatism. The NYCRC Report says, “They limit interaction between minority and non-minority students, and reward separatist thinking They deny equal interaction on campus.” However, I don’t have any direct experience with them. I’d love to hear from someone who does.
I don’t think that ethnic dorms will promote self-segregation any more than anything else will. I don’t think it is a good thing when people say ‘letting “colleges allow” is a bad thing’ either. Too easy to come in and take away some of those fundamental freedoms that keep people from worrying who you think they should associate with.
I could have sworn that was my point, too.
Suddenly I’m PC?
Dang. I’m agreeing with Rick up there, not Azael.
Forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of a group in New York that wrote this report without studying the actual programs or even talking to the students. I don’t think the NYCRC has any basis for telling us how “interaction between minority and non-minority students” has been affected or whether “equal interaction” has been denied. Seperatism may well be one of the effects of these dorms but it is hardly the only one, IMO the positive effects far outweigh my concern that these dorms will become exclusionary.
Cornell has other theme-houses, not all of them focus on ethnicities. When I was accepted there (last summer), I was placed in a theme house…not the Hispanic one, but I think the one more concerned about the environment. Basically, they just placed me where there was a space.
In order to be part of the ethnic houses, you don’t have to be member of the ethnic group. That was something that was addressed in the information given by Cornell. The student could choose whether or not he/she wanted to be placed in an ethnic house, and if so, which one.
About separating geeks and non-geeks:
My current university has an honors-only dorm. Only students admitted to the university’s honor’s program can live there. So it is done in the universities, and I don’t see it as segregationist. I am part of the program (an honor student), yet I choose not to live there, and no one placed me there without my consent.
Right before I started my freshman year in college, I was in a 6-week orientation program targeted to minority students, most of us being black. We occupied an entire dormitory, in effect making it a “black” dorm. Did we sing old negro spirituals in our Kenti cloth bathrobes every day? No, but the atmosphere was very much “black” and I felt very much at home. One of my roommates was actually a white girl (the program was open to all freshmen) and she remarked how different our social interactions were from what she was used to. Having never really been in 100% “white” environments before, I didn’t really understand what she was talking about.
Flash forward six weeks later, when school officially started. I moved into a dorm that was almost all white. It wasn’t all horrible and bad, but it certaintly wasn’t very home-like. If I hadn’t had my twin sister with me, I wouldn’t have had any friends. I felt very alienated. (But the alienation was a lesson in itself that I wouldn’t ever want to trade.) I imagine that I was seen as a pitiful outsider at best, an unpleasant intruder at worse.
I don’t know for a fact if having an ethnic dorm would have made that alienation less poignant, but I think it would have to some extent. I’m not adverse to mixing and mingling among different people (my lifestyle makes self-segregation difficult), but being a minority ain’t always fun. Sometimes you just want to go home and belong to something. Themed dorms aren’t for everyone, but I can see how they would be valuable to others.
I bet in most cases, the only difference between themed and non-themed dorms is that the cultural orientation of the former is simply more explicit than the latter. All dorms operate under some culture. The closer that culture is to the mainstream, the less noticeable it is.
I am happy that we are focusing on “university-encouraged” dorm housing as opposed to the hapless multi-cultural centers running on perpetually low funds trying to promote diversity on campuses.
The key point which Azael reiterated is that the study in question appears morbidly incomplete. They didn’t talk to ANYONE or even tried to find out how REAL PEOPLE are affected by these dorms. Without this information or other first-hand experiences, this thread would be all speculation. What if we found out that 50% of African-American themed dorms are occupied by whites? Would that completely defeat the OP’s thesis that such dorms lead to self-segregation? (Well, guess what, that’s indeed the case at Stanford!)
Also, I would like to know what the role of the university is. That is, how do they support these dorms? Do they also support the fraternities and sororities? Or, in other words, in public universities, would these dorms be constitutional?
I couldn’t open this link, because I’m not a subscriber, but the above
[quote]
(http://www.ask.com/main/metaAnswer.asp?t=ai&s=a&MetaEngine=directhit&en=te&eo=2&o=0&frames=True&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chronicle.com%2Fdata%2Farticles.dir%2Feguid-42.dir%2F35eguide.htm&ac=24&adcat=jeev&pt=Academe+Today%3A+Chronicle+Archives&dm=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chronicle.com%2Fdata%2Farticles.dir%2Feguid-42.dir%2F35eguide.htm&io=9&qid=CA1D17213294074F830BD507C89B1896&back=ask%3Dcornell%2Bblack%2Bdormitory%26o%3D0%26x%3D12%26y%3D5&ask=cornell+black+dormitory&dt=021216110542&amt=&pg=1&qsrc=0) suggests that Cornell has a controversial dorm structure and that Wesleyan may have moved toward all black.
KarlGrenze, you pointed out that, “In order to be part of the ethnic houses [at Cornell], you don’t have to be member of the ethnic group.” However, it was my impression that non-blacks were discouraged from living in the black dorm, and that it was actually all-black or nearly so. Do you know whether or not this is correct? Do you know what the breakdowns are at other ethnic houses?
monstro, thank you very much for sharing your experience.
A question that has been asked before, but still deserves repeating: why is it that when a bunch of white students hang out together, it isn’t self-segregating? When, on a floor, there are 20 students who are white, and 2 who are members of various minority groups, if 6 or 7 of the white students form a clique, they’re not considered self-segregating?
That they’re places to live.
At my school, there were the officially sanctioned “language houses” where the people who chose there were expected to speak the language in the common areas. I think they also did cultural events. I think they drew a higher than demographically expected percentage of international students.
There were also unofficial living areas (dorms and halls) where the percentage of students of a particular racial, cultural, or religious minority was higher than would be expected based on the school’s demographics. Anyone could live there. None of the areas were all (fill in the blank). So far as I could tell, the people who would usually be in the majority, but were not in this one particular place, were living the lives of normal college students. The only place I ever felt even slightly uncomfortable was in one particular kitchen, where a few friends of mine lived. On that hall, enough of the students wanted to keep Kosher that there were rules for the kitchen to keep it that way, and I really didn’t want to mess it up for them. But I never felt excluded or as though I wasn’t welcome to hang out in their common area or talk to people or visit my friends whenever I wanted to.
Discrimination by sex is the only exception allowed under federal regulations:
In other words, you can specify that you want a female roommate, but not a female Chinese roommate.
Azael, newspapers do indeed reject advertisements for shared housing that violate these regulations, regardless of whether the placer of the ad is the landlord.
I see some posters have chimed in with personal experiences.
**monstro ** makes an excellent point.
Some ask: “Why do blacks live with their own kind?”
Someone answers: " I want to feel comfortable and be part of a majority atleast when I get back from work"
The truth is when minorities self-segregate it is all the more obvious. I agree it is a wonderful ideal for people to want to not self-segregate. And, to an extent, I would be disappointed if I didn’t find people of different cultures not sharing apartments. But, a Chinese female flying in to this country may not be able to handle living with a white male citizen. Food, language, behavior, sexuality, you name it. This is just one of the things where letting people make choices is the only alternative. The best we can hope to do is create an atmosphere where the same Chinese female might be willing to move in with an American friend of hers in a few years.
Can’t comment about the all-black dorms, sorry. I do know that I was not encouraged to live in the Hispanic dorm, even though they knew I was Hispanic. They do state that each dorm has cultural activities and they have an extra fee.
Perhaps people that don’t share the theme-culture would be less willing to pay extra money just to live at a dorm.
Well, it’s the “wrong ethical track” only by your lights (and mine, too, for that matter). You ask whether we should impose our ethics on others, when those others are not acting illegally. My answer is “no.”
What you can do is not have anything to do with Stanford until it changes its policy. That’s fine - the right for someone to act legally in a manner I do not like is countervailed by my right to disassociate myself from that conduct. I will take that stance.
Of course, I’ve never had any association with Stanford, so my life will not change one iota from before I became aware of Stanford’s policy.
So, for me, and for (what I assume is the) 99.99999% of the participants in this thread who have no current association with Stanford, it is a non-issue.
Sua
Ok, December, searched some links for you…
Main page of Cornell’s housing department. As you can see, for undergraduate housing there are many options, not just ethnic houses.
All the Program Houses available. Again, notice that not all of them are ethnic-oriented.
If you go to each program, you’ll notice that the houses have (relatively) small occupancy. Given that Cornell is a fairly diverse university, it seems ridiculous to think that all the minority students are in the ethnic houses.
Ujamaa’s webpage mentions all the different students that live in the house. Even if all the students are black (and I have my doubts after seeing NYC, Los Angeles, Dominican Republic, and Taiwan in the list of places represented), they come from different cultures. A black from NYC does not share the same culture a black dominicano has, nor the same culture of a Nigerian.
My understanding of the federal law on discrimination in housing is that you may actually discriminate on the basis of ethnicity among people that will live with you, but that you may not advertise in a discriminatory way, except on the basis of sex. The law can’t compel me to live with anyone I don’t want to live with, but it can prevent me (with my like-minded compatriots) from filling the want ads with “NINA” advertisements.
(IAAL, but I have not researched this issue, and I am simply parroting back what I remember from Property Law. In particular, I remember there were nuances having to do with owner-occupied multifamily housing, whose details I do not remember. Rely on these statements at your own peril).
ENugent, that is my recollection, as well. It appears that Fretful Porcupine was conflating housing advertising laws with housing laws themselves. A minor quibble.
Sua
FP: *I’m wondering how, say, an “Asian-American house” would further those ends when there are dozens, if not hundreds, of different Asian cultures that have little in common with one another. *
Oh, I agree that a more specific cultural focus would have advantages. However, universities generally have only limited support or accessibility for “ethnic-themed” housing, so various ethnic groups share the opportunities by making the focus more general.
december: I think the broad acceptance of ethnically-themed houses amoung academics is a regressive trend.
As amarinth remarks, why wasn’t this a bad thing when only white students were doing it? For decades, many colleges have had French or German or Spanish houses to give students who might or might not be of French or German or Spanish descent an opportunity to experience the language and culture of these ethnicities outside the classroom. It’s not the “broad acceptance” of such housing that constitutes a new “trend”, it’s the resistance to it expressed in posts like december’s.
Put me in the “non-issue” camp. Celebrating ethnic differences and maintaining cultural identity is not the same as segregation.
The fact that these ethnic dorms both allow members who are not part of their ethnic group and are optional to attend in the first place pretty much denies the OP’s definition as segregation. Even the “self-segregation” argument is a stretch, though I buy that one to a degree. It is demonstrably not an absolute in this situation, though. The people who are part of the ethnic dorms are not completely shutting others out. They are making a place for themselves where they can be comfortable and feel like they belong (an admirable goal for any college dorm).
I can’t help but think that maintaining cultural identities and customs, especially in a college setting, is a good thing. Calling it segregation is simply inaccurate.