In recent issues of The Dartmouth, the decline of early African-American applicants to the Class of 2003 has dominated the headlines and the reasons for this decline have been debated. Recently, I have discovered why many minority students feel threatened by the environment at Dartmouth and therefore do not wish to even apply for acceptance.
On Friday, January 8th, Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity (Sig Ep) and Alpha Xi Delta sorority (the same sorority which cosponsored the now infamous "ghetto" party with Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity in the fall) cosponsored a closed party with a "Miami, Will Smith" theme, in which participants were encouraged to dress up "like Cubans." As if it were not enough of a tragedy that early African-American applications went down by 75% and early Asian-American applications went down by 25%, now bigots in our community have conspired to commit yet another hate crime in order to both discourage potential Hispanic students from applying to our great institution and to intimidate Hispanic students already attending Dartmouth College.
I refuse to yield to the terror tactics these bigots employ and I shall not allow them to transform this college into the capital of racism. If Dartmouth College is sincerely committed to diversity, if Dartmouth esteems any value on fostering an environment tolerant towards students of different races, sexual orientations, religions and ethnicity, then the administration must punish Dartmouth students and organizations which commit acts of racism.
I challenge the administration to send a message to minority students and potential minority student applicants that it supports their existence in Hanover as well as a message to racist students and potential racist student applicants that it shall not tolerate their behavior by officially reprimanding the above mentioned Sig Ep fraternity and Alpha Xi Delta sorority. I challenge all members of the Dartmouth community to write letters to the national chapters of Sigma Phi Epsilon (hq@sigephq.org) and Alpha Xi Delta (fhq@alphaxidelta.org) to inform them of how disgracefully their Dartmouth chapters are representing their organizations. While these actions will not eliminate bigotry overnight, with continued commitment by all of us, it is definitely a step in the right direction.
