Opinion
To the Editor:
Many students have been talking about "the need to improve and maintain our diversity."I could not agree more.Student Assembly presidential candidate Phil Ferrera '96 has stated that he supports not only the furthering of affinity housing but the establishment of gender exclusive housing -- for women only.
The problem is that Ferrera completely misses the point.He is promoting " diversity"whose practical effect is segregation.Although I hope that this is not what he wishes, the consequence of these poorly thought-out actions is segregation.
Having been the senior class president at a high school whose student body was 33 percent black, 30 percent white, 20 percent Latino and 15 percent Asian (mostly Cambodian and Vietnamese), I know first hand the benefits of diversity.But more than that, I know what it means to be integrated.This only occurs when all racial and ethnic groups make conscience efforts to interact, not to live across campus from each other.
Diversity without integration is nothing.Unless the different racial and ethnic groups on campus are mixing and interacting, there is no diversity.