2008 Woodie Awards
Students, faculty share mixed feelings about discrimination
By Lexxie Shiring
Rocket Contributor
Issue date: 9/28/07 Section: News
"A professor called me a racist because I felt that African-Americans and Caucasians do not have equal opportunities in the world because of Affirmative Action," Anderson said.
Affirmative action refers to policies used to promote access to education or employment typically aimed at minorities or women. The reasoning behind Affirmative Action policies is to readdress the effects of past discrimination and to encourage universities, hospitals and police forces to be more representative of the population.
SRU President Robert Smith said he thinks that there are areas of racial harmony that need to be improved.
"I believe that there are people on campus that feel that they have been discriminated against because of their race," Smith said. "We hope that we can continue to eliminate the discriminatory circumstances for people so that they feel more comfortable on campus."
SRU has launched an initiative this year to integrate into courses more discussion regarding civil rights and diversity appreciation.
"We are hopeful that by the end of this year, as a result of curriculum changes, we will have a lot more courses that will have an increase in the content devoted to diversity issues," Smith said.
President of the Student Union of Minority Affairs, Brandon Parker, said that he has never personally been discriminated against but he has been categorized.
"The only thing I have witnessed is sitting in the classroom and professors tend to resort to African Americans while discussing lower poverty income by looking at the African American students and saying, 'you would understand what I am talking about,' when not all African Americans share the same lifestyle," Parker said.
Parker and black junior criminal justice major Deirdra Bullock both mentioned the threat that took place last fall when a Slippery Rock High School student allegedly said he was going to kill all of the black students on campus.
"We kind of already know that there is discrimination because of the incident last year when someone said that they wanted to kill all of the African American students on campus," Bullock said.
Affirmative action refers to policies used to promote access to education or employment typically aimed at minorities or women. The reasoning behind Affirmative Action policies is to readdress the effects of past discrimination and to encourage universities, hospitals and police forces to be more representative of the population.
SRU President Robert Smith said he thinks that there are areas of racial harmony that need to be improved.
"I believe that there are people on campus that feel that they have been discriminated against because of their race," Smith said. "We hope that we can continue to eliminate the discriminatory circumstances for people so that they feel more comfortable on campus."
SRU has launched an initiative this year to integrate into courses more discussion regarding civil rights and diversity appreciation.
"We are hopeful that by the end of this year, as a result of curriculum changes, we will have a lot more courses that will have an increase in the content devoted to diversity issues," Smith said.
President of the Student Union of Minority Affairs, Brandon Parker, said that he has never personally been discriminated against but he has been categorized.
"The only thing I have witnessed is sitting in the classroom and professors tend to resort to African Americans while discussing lower poverty income by looking at the African American students and saying, 'you would understand what I am talking about,' when not all African Americans share the same lifestyle," Parker said.
Parker and black junior criminal justice major Deirdra Bullock both mentioned the threat that took place last fall when a Slippery Rock High School student allegedly said he was going to kill all of the black students on campus.
"We kind of already know that there is discrimination because of the incident last year when someone said that they wanted to kill all of the African American students on campus," Bullock said.
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