By Tom Santilli

There have been times in my two and half years at Wesleyan in which I have greeted its prevailing liberal philosophies and emphasis on "diversity" with a bit of skepticism. Sometimes I feel as if they are vacantly expounded with no real concern for substance and meaning, a pop-ideology tossed around so much that people forget exactly why it is important. 

I have not ventured to voice these concerns because there is much about the project of diversifying that is crucial to building a tolerant, informed, and ultimately understanding college community. Uncovering injustice directed towards women (salary inequality, sexual harassment), minorities (racial profiling, capital punishment, and judicial inequality), and homosexuals (marriage and occupation rights) are all best defeated by a strong affirmation of the rights of these groups (as their particular identities dictate). They have a right to justice precisely because it is their unique experience, identity, and worth as a human being that is equal to everyone else’s. 

It is then the job of diversity to promote understanding through education. The more one understands and identifies with a particular group the less likely one is to persecute them. The goal of diversifying, then, would be to increase representation of minority groups in order to combat injustice and affirm the equal human dignity of all without consideration of secondary characteristics. Roughly outlined, this is the liberalism we embrace at Wesleyan. 

We might conclude, then, that while diversity may be useful in combating prejudice and injustice, it is not a moral end in itself. That is, prejudice does not disappear just by virtue of having a large number of minority groups represented on campus. In fact, encouraging diversity without attention to its purpose may tend to reinforce the very moral boundaries and exclusivity liberalism was meant to deconstruct. 

What we are striving for, then, is not just to be unified within our different spheres of experience and culture, but unified as a community of human beings. The essential rationale for
equal justice is that by virtue of sharing distinctively human traits (reason, feeling, need for love, food, etc.), all people are entitled to equal treatment. Note that the emphasis does not lie
on our differences, although these may be useful to identity and social happiness. 

Therefore, I propose that there are two simultaneous agendas at Wesleyan: the means of diversifying and increasing minority representation in the administration, faculty, and students;
and the ends of a united community free of prejudice and intolerance. These two processes of encouraging a diverse education and of supporting a more unified community can, and should, happen simultaneously. However, it is vitally important that the ideal of equal human dignity and worth be recognized as the primary impetus for the project of recognizing a variety of human experiences. 

In some respects, the Wesleyan community is united by virtue of its existing under the same administration, but I would hope that we would strive for a more interactive and intimate unity than this. While I do not suggest that prejudice has been abolished here, I feel as if it is time to understand and acknowledge the fruits of our labor. 

Presumably the paradigmatic example of an attempt to do just this would be something called "People’s Unity Day," which was observed here on campus on February 22. This is a day to
celebrate the fact that we are all united as human beings, to look beyond our differences and recognize that they do not matter because we all share something in common that binds us together in a great melting pot of humanity, right? Wrong. 

It was instead a day for reaffirming and perpetuating difference, and advancing the project of recognizing and increasing it within the college. Coalitions from various minority groups on campus came together only to promote their common agenda of supporting factionalism, and not to support that end to which it ultimately leads, namely a common unity. The headline in the Argus reads "Students unite for curricular, faculty diversity". Is this the only reason for which we should unite? Is it appropriate that on People’s Unity Day students sign petitions asking the administration to recognize as many human differences as possible? Have we achieved success when some day there is perfect representation in the college and in America, and we then happily separate into our newly-recognized and represented factions?

I would suggest that although identifying marginalized groups does help the process of exposing injustice in society, it is painfully ironic that on a day purported to celebrate "unity," the various student groups on campus can only unite because they are divided. It is division and segregation that, in part, created injustice in the first place. 

I am not proposing that the project of diversity be discontinued. I merely hope that a college that has come so far in erasing ignorance, prejudice, and intolerance, can start finding ways to unite as human beings. 

 
Santilli is a member of the class of 2001.