I, like many others, decided to try to give something back to Dartmouth and host a prospective student. Although I never visited here as a prospective myself, I thought that I could help show Dartmouth to someone and explain all of the positives and negatives of life here. What I didn't realize was that who I was going to get to host was based on race and religion rather than randomness or intellectual commonalties.
Going to pick up my prospective, I saw the strangest thing. All of the African-American prospectives had African-American hosts. The same with the Latino persons that I saw. My prospective was Jewish, the same as I - as if you couldn't tell from my by-line. Either there was a major aberration from the laws of probability, or a plan was in action.
What is this plan? Obviously it is a secret, at least no one told me that I'd have a Jewish prospective and would definitely NOT have an African-American prospective. If someone had, I would not have participated in the program. I do not believe that only someone of your same racial/ethnic/religious making can be your host.
I understand that in some ways it would be helpful-- my prospective did ask me about the Hillel program on campus. However, my answer was that I've heard about it, and I know some people who go, but that I've never been myself. The same is true about La Alianza Latina and the African-American-Society.
I could gladly have recommended someone for them to talk too about either, and I would have had the same amount of personal knowledge of all three.
My prospective was choosing between here and Amherst College. I told him the standard reasons why Dartmouth was better: larger student body and more opportunities, prettier women, free beer, the trimester system, etc....
He said that he'd love to talk more, but he was very tired from his visit to Amherst. He told me that he'd been hosted by a black catholic man, whom he'd had two nights of fascinating discussions with. I felt ashamed.
Imagine the concept that we could all learn more by being with someone different than by being with someone the same. I know that it is more comfortable for most people to be around people of similar race, religion, and ethnicity.
But it is just as important to be around people who are different. Perhaps administrative policy could reflect those values and goals.
Then why does the administration set-up this program? Ironically it does show the truth about Dartmouth. That truth is that most administrative programs, such as prospective weekend, are set up to systematically self-segregate the student body.
Now, I realize that I've said the "SS" word. I am not out to blame any one group for not integrating nor for not trying to integrate themselves.
However I do believe that we all think of self-segregation as a problem on campus. In fact I believe that is why the college does not publicly state the basis for its prospective pairings. Please, the least you can be is honest about the system.
Going a step further, I would like to see how race/religion/ethnicity are used for 'random' freshman rooming assignment. I was roomed with another suburban Jewish male.
Given that Dartmouth is 10% Jewish, that would make the probability of anyone being assigned a Jewish roommate a 1 in 10 long shot. It would also make it a 1 in 100 or 1% probability that two Jews would be roomed together. Are there any other 1%'ers out there?
It seems like there is a common theme in the housing department and that is to match up people based on race and religion. I would like to hear a debate on the merits of such a program, or at least an open admission that this goes on. I wonder if it is legal. Yet what disappoints me the most is that the administration has not been open about this, has not explained it to the student body.
Why are there all these secret policies out there? I understand that the CIA and FBI might need a veil of secrecy, but the Office of Residential Life, come on. Yet I seriously doubt that ORL made this decision.
It sounds like a program implemented from above. Is the thought among the deans that multi-racial rooms don't work?
That Jews need to stick together? I would consider these to be bigoted and racist ideas, although some might disagree. The key is that we as a community must discuss and struggle with these issues, not try to hide and create covert operations.
