Many people on campus have bandied about the phrase "social justice" over the past few weeks. But while opposition to employee layoffs has been open and vocal, there has been a mysterious silence from Parkhurst surrounding an incident that made a student feel unwelcome at Dartmouth.
While sitting in Novack Caf one night earlier this term, an international student was studying peacefully when Safety and Security officers approached him and demanded an identification card. The student was confused Safety and Security officers had never targeted him for inspection before in the many nights he studied at Novack. After forcing him to surrender his Dartmouth ID, officers called in a physical description of him and left.
Keiselim Monts, the Interim Director of Safety and Security, explained to me that a call had been placed by a student to report a suspicious person who did not appear to be of college age. But the international student, a member of the class of 2013, does not look particularly younger or older than the average Dartmouth student. The only quality that makes him stand out is his distinctly Arab features.His appearance hardly suggested any sort of threat to the study area not that it should suggest anything at all. The threat of al-Qaeda operatives using the couches of Novack to plot terror attacks on their MacBooks is fairly minimal. On the other hand, when fraternity pledges continuously assail the studying area of Novack with obscenely loud shenanigans, Safety and Security rarely respond. The '13 student was, at worst, a potential non-student stealing Wi-Fi from the school not that the Grafton County area has a significant Arab population.
In an interview with the student who asked to remain anonymous he stated that he was left wondering if it would happen again. "I really felt like I don't belong here," he said. "I was totally upset, even after I spoke to the officer about the incident." Such mistreatment has surely reversed any sense of welcome he felt during his DOC Trip and Freshman Orientation.
When asked to discuss their response to the issue, both the Dean of Undergraduate Students and the Acting Director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership declined to comment. Perhaps they do not feel responsible for keeping the Dartmouth community informed. The fact that they and the rest of the administration have reacted with silence precludes us from knowing if this situation was dealt with internally. Or if they are aware of a pattern of similar events.
Dartmouth has a history of racial insensitivity, even in recent times. Take for example the observance of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" several years ago and recent sarcastic accusations against Dartmouth's Al-Nur organization for attacks on the school ("Faith Under Fire," Mar. 1). But in instances such as various Indian mascot controversies or the Generic Good Morning Message mocking College President Jim Yong Kim's ethnicity, the administration has publicly addressed the situation. The administrators' unwillingness to discuss this incident and a potential history of similar occurrences is antithetical to preventing future racial profiling.
In fact, by keeping the issue quiet, the international student can only expect a similar response if he is mistreated in the future not to mention students of future classes who may suffer similar prejudice. Maybe our administration is more concerned with hiding the incident for the sake of the College's public image than ensuring its students live in an accepting community.
When I asked Monts if anything was being done to prevent this from happening again, he said that students must be "cognitive, sensitive and mindful of their community." His point is valid. Safety and Security cannot control student complaints and must respond to every call. While student safety should always be a primary concern, this situation hardly seemed to pose a threat. We as Dartmouth students should consider the consequences of our actions before ostracizing our fellow classmates from the community.
We don't know what truly ran through the student's head when he or she placed the call. No student, however, should be made to feel unwanted at our little College on the hill, especially for his or her physical appearance. If DOC trip leaders with strangely tie-dyed hair and curious costumes are not perceived to be a threat to student safety, I should hope that we similarly accept international students or anyone else who looks a little bit different.
