The University of Idaho Argonaut

There is a lot of buzz circulating around university campuses. This buzz is for diversity and what value can be gained from promoting diversity (maybe Government Funds, and grant opportunities).
There is real value associated with diversity that cannot be quantified with a dollar value. Human interaction and understanding is priceless.

Like many universities, the University of Idaho Web site displays a slide show of successful people of a diverse nature (black, Hispanic, Asian, GLBT, and other).With such an image one might think that Idaho is a melting pot of culture and understanding.
This is not necessarily the case. For every “diverse” student that attends this university there are nine white Christians enrolled.

To say that the university is not a great place to learn and come to understand other cultures is unfair. The university offers many opportunities to students and provides a relatively safe place for students of all backgrounds.
Why must the university need a Women’s Center, Office of Multicultural Affairs, or GLBT center? Why is there no WASP center, or Men’s center? The reason is that women still do not get the same pay as men, and many people on campus need a place where they can feel safe. In this ideal society of understanding and civil rights hate still seems to have a place.

What is necessary is better understanding of diversity and more programs and opportunities for diverse people to feel at home in Idaho. Student organizations like the Chinese Student Association and Muslim Student Association have a need for better programs and funding.
Most of the diverse student organizations are dealing with more than just cultural differences. From many Middle Eastern, African, Asian, and other international students, English is their second language.
Imagine if you were told that all your university classes would be taught in Japanese. These students have been thrust into a different country and way of life. Using their native language in public might generate hateful looks and comments.

With such an international world and the Internet, some students find solace with relationships over the Internet.
Communication with friends or family in their home country is a great way  to connect with your roots. This might prove impossible on most university computers.
The only acceptable language for university PCs running windows seems to be English. Only the library labs offer other language text encoding, and fail to save the settings on the next use.
To native English users this might not be a problem, but this university markets itself as diverse and welcoming.
This is just one example of how the university and our society is tailored for white Christians even if there are other cultures living within the community.

The U.S. government has put into place programs and funding in order to help institutions better mix peoples with different culture, sexual orientations, race, and religious backgrounds.
Is the university in need of more than a dozen protestant Christian organizations? With names like “Crusade” they can’t be open to all people or dare we say even non-believers. What about people that worship his or her own god or don’t even believe in a god? Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, new age, or atheist might not feel at home at the University of Idaho.

We can all work together to make this university a more welcoming school. We all have a long way to go. We can volunteer. We can voice our opinions. When people say, “Affirmative Action is not fair,” it is our responsibility to explain to them that in our racist and prejudice society equal rights is something to strive for. Sure there is a better way, but as human beings we have not looked to take care of one another.

Affirmative Action is necessary at this point. Programs for women, black, Hispanic, Asian, GLBT and other are necessary at this point and we can only hope that in the future such programs will become unnecessary and outdated. Today we need programs that remind people that in America — “the greatest country on the earth” — that all people are not free, and that this society continues to oppress the people within it.