The Michigan Daily -- Friday, September 25, 1992 - Page 5 --, 'A lot o fpeople would like to ignore institutional racism and say that it doesn 't exist rather than acknowledge it and defeat it.' by Mona Qureshi Daily Minority Issues Reporter Acertain hush falls over the conversations of many U-M students and administrators when somebody brings up a subject as delicate as institutional racism. "I really don't want to talk about it," said one student who wished to remain anonymous. Many other students and some administrators also eschewed the subject or asked to be unnamed. "We haven't developed a way and a lan- guage to talk about these things with each other in ways which won't be misunderstood or hurt- ful," said Shirley Clarkson, director of Planning and Communications in the Office of Student Affairs. She explained the fragility of discussions on institutional racism and the effects these conver- sations could have on people. "People talk within groups, but we haven't found ways to bridge. We have been able to accomplish this in the arts," Clarkson said. "But face to face - it's a learning, breaking new grounds. But if you can't do it in the University, where can you?" Edgar Ho, activities co-chair for the Asian American Association (AAA) said the univer- sity environment is not conducive to exploring these issues. "Students are really quiet in classroom situ- ations because they have heard about U of M liberals and Political Correctness," he said. "A lot of that has fallen away now." Ho said some people who are not minorities do not speak because they are afraid of being labeled racist. Additionally, Ho said people of color are afraid to publicly address institutional racism because they fear being accused of reverse- racism and showing constantdissatisfaction with their social positions. "People are thinking, 'Here's another one of those guys who wants to take more' and I don't thinkthat'shealthy for theclassroom," he added. Interfraternity Council (IFC)PresidentBruce Namerow explained his fear of speaking in public about institutional racism. "A lot of times I feel like I need to keep my mouth closed because I'm scaredof being called racist when I know in my heart that I don't have one shred of it," Namerow said. "When it comes to the Daily, your words take a bigger context. You have to answer to it. I wish whatever anger each side is feeling could be discussed," he added. Some leaders of groups representing stu- dents of color have said they have no qualms with expressing their views in public. Muhammad Mamdani, president of the In- dian American Student Association (IASA), said, "When somebody sees a person - Black, White, Brown, or Yellow - it's not necessarily bad to say, 'That is a Black person' or 'That is a Yellow person' or 'That is a Brown person. "I think it becomes wrong when you look beyond the skin color and you make stereotypes about those people and assume all people are like that," he said. He explained that while both students and take kindly to a student pressing them about institutional racism. "Your name would definitely be acknowl- edged by the University," she said. What is it? But what is institutional racism? "I can't tell you what that means. One has to separate out individual kinds of behavior and prejudice from institutional racism," Moody said. He defined it as a series of policies and practices which disadvantage some social group. The determining factor, Moody said, is that institu- tional racism is a practice which has developed over decades and goes unnoticed. "No one's saying, 'Who am I going to mess up to- day?' People can be as. well-intentioned as possible and not have any kind of malice or forethought," Moody said. "Institutional racism happens without= people even thinking about it. Mamdani added he wanted his professors to be the best in their fields. "I want to be trained by someone who is good. If he or she's Indian or Oriental, that's fine. I want the best-qualified to teach me," he said. However, another Asian American leader said there seems to be a movement at the U-M and other colleges against Asian Americans. over the past four years to 2,510 students; The number of Hispanic/Latino students has gone up 83% to 1,240; Asian students have increased 50% to 2,679; Native American students have increased 47% to 189; Twenty-five percent of 1991's entering class were students of color; "It's not dependent on the individual's prejudice or lack of prejudice. The poli- cies that have been set up are social institutions," he added. Pattrice Maurer, board member of the Ella Baker- Nelson Mandela Center for Anti-Racist Education (BMC) agreed institutional racism is not often recog- nized. "They are policies and practices of institutions which discriminate in effect whether or not the individu- Who's to blame for the apathy- who isn't? From time to time, editors of other college newspapers call me to ask what's going on at the University of Michigan. Lately, I have been having a hard time ' finding an answer to this question. What is going on here? This is a dynamic, cosmopolitan Matthew university, which offers a Rennie variety of opportunities to every student who comes here. And you know what? Nobody cares. I don't mean nobody outside of the university. I mean nobody in the university. Students no longer come to this school to savor the unique experi- ences it can offer. They come to get a diploma. The school has become a drive-thru window. Get in, get out. And with any luck, do it as quickly as possible. People no longer see the university as their home and community for four years. They see their tie to the school as a patron-client relationship. Who's to blame for this apathy? A better question is "Who isn't?" The easy argument is that students feel so marginalized by the university administration that they don't think they can make a difference. History lends some credence to this theory. Despite two years of protests over the deputization of the campus police force, the school moved ahead with its agenda, and we now have 'M'-Go-Blue-Cops on every corner. So students are justified in feeling helpless, but we must understand that without students, the university ceases to exist. We have power, but only as a group. People at this school currently marginalize themselves by not supporting the handful of people who do speak out on their behalf. Students can complain that their voices aren't being heard. Bu it's not possible to hear words that are never spoken. Earlier this week, students had two opportunities to give their opinions on the proposed student code of conduct. Neither meeting drew more than 50 students. That the university decided to hold these "public" meetings at a time when 25 percent of the campus was busy with fraternity and sorority rush is rather curious. Why would Greek students care about the code anyway? All it does is allow the university to repri- mand students for what occurs at off-campus Greek functions. I imagine most fraternity houses must love that idea. However, this poor timing doesn't excuse the sparse atten- dance at both forums. Rackham student Colin Leach said at Wednesday's hearing, "It's completely unacceptable to wait for people to come to you to make comments." He may be right. But as one of the few people on this campus who is willing to take a public stance on student issues, Leach should know that the only way to make one's. voice heard is to keep yelling. If MLB Auditorium 3 was filled to capacity Wednesday night with students blasting the proposed code, then we would have a right to complain if the administration adopted such a policy. Instead, the room was only about one-quarter as full as a 9 a.m. Great Books lecture. The administration can interpret this apathy by saying, "Students don't really care, so we can do whatever we want." So when the day comes that you're kicked out of school after being accused of a crime of which you were later acquitted, think about the sitcom re-run you watched on television Wednesday night. But this isn't about the code. I don't care what you think about the code or any other issue, so long as you care enough to do some- FILE PHO TO/Daly Students have been calling U-M administrative policy racist for decades. Protests heightened during the third Black Action Movement in 1987, resulting in the implementation of the Michigan Mandate. Shown below is the total enrollment o American, Native American, Hispanic/ American) at the U-M's Ann Arbor canr the Michigan Mandate (1987-1991). als involved hold biased attitudes," Maurer said. Students and community members founded the BMCin 1988 as asupportmechanism for the third Black Action Movement (BAM III) cam- paign, which began in 1987. During BAM III, the United Coalition Against Racism (UCAR) - a group of Black and progressive students - brought to the U-M administration a list of 12 demands to make the university more comfortable for students from different social backgrounds. Maurer said some of the demands have yet to be met. Institutional Racism on Campus Maurer said while institutional racism exists in many forms at the U-M, it is most prevalent in the admissions process. "In education, the perfect example is testing, which has repeatedly shown to have cultural bias, yet it continues to be used as an admissions criteria for this universit y," f , Maurer said. She added f students of color (Asian that the admis- Latino, African sions process npus during the years of unfairly gives benefits to those who are children of alumni. ,636 "TisUniver- 6, 3 sity once used to be all white," she said. "Applica- tions now disproportion- ately benefit white students." Moody said that U-M repre- sentatives bring racial stereotypes with them when they recruit fac- ulty and students of color. "When the 1 1990 1991 University re- cruited before, it would say it's re- cruiting in Chicago and New York," he said. "It never mentioned that it was primarily recruiting in the suburbs and not the city. You respond and behave toward people based on experience." Clowney agreed, "People think we're here because of Affirmative Action and our testing score standards had to be lowered. "R ntnennlp aren't nnderctandin thatn nonle "The main problem is that all Asian Ameri- cans are placedin the same boat. The Vietnamese population is very different from the Japanese and thus they all have their own needs," Ho said. Ho said U-M administrators do not try hard enough to communicate with Asian American group leaders. He said Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Hartford has overlooked this group when speaking to student leaders of color. "It seems strange the administration does not make a stronger effort to meet with us," Ho said. "BAM and UCAR were only five years ago." Hartford was not available for comment. But student leaders do not have a hard time agreeing that Blacks have the hardest time break- ing through institutional racism at the U-M. "The administration has had problems show- ing African Americans the University is a good place to come. If I were an African American, I wouldn't want to come here. I wouldn't feel welcome," Ho said. Namerow agreed. "African American students haven't gotten fair treatment all the time," Namerow said. Clowney said, "There's a large need for social outlets. There's not an outlet for Black people on this campus," Clowney said. She noted two events lastyear-Africenergy, a celebration of African culture and music, and the B SU leadership conference - which the U- M attempted to cancel days beforehand. Clowney said Africenergy was canceled when the university asked the campus building where the event was supposed to take place to cancel the BSU's reservation. "At the first Africenergy, there was not one problem, notone fight. And when you're talking about the BSU leadership conference, Black students personally went out to prevent any altercations as student deputies," Clowney said. She said the policies implemented by the Michigan Union Board were very discrimina- tory toward students of color, but she noted a particular lack of respect toward Blacks. - "The Board is implementing a Union policy that is not even on paper," Clowney said. Student leaders agreed that the lack of a documented Union policy was wrong. "They do not have any policies in writing. We found them to be cooperative towards us, but wehave seen bad treatment towards others," IASA President Mamdani said. Solutions With the Michigan Mandate - a plan estab- lished in 1988 to increase diversity in the student and faculty populations - the U-M has taken stens to addrae these isses.e 0 Graduate students of color have increased 66% since 1987; Professional students of color have in- creased 43%; Currently, 68% of Black students and 64 percent of Hispanic/Latino students graduate from the U-M, and; 159 new faculty of color have been added to the U-M's tenure track ranks over the last four years. Student leaders said they are happy the Man- date was drafted, but hope to see it implemented effectively. "I'm pleased the administration made this move, but they were forced to do this," Ho said. "The intention is there, but to follow through .. (the) increase of minority students in the last 5 years is positive," he added. "The danger is they may look at this and say, 'Oh, we're done.' Everyone looks at numbers of people of color." Mamdani said the U-M is doing well in its effort, but it needs to expound on a communica- tion gap. Namerow agreed, and added that students can also make their own efforts to reach out to each other like they did when they brought filmmaker Spike Lee to campus last year. In an unprecedented show of unity, several campus groups - including the University Activities Center, Hillel, the BSU, and the IFC - worked together to make the event possible. "We need open and honest communication from student to student and student to adminis- trator. Spike Lee was an extremely mixed audience. A lot of Black students were open against the University," Namerow said. "In bringing Spike Lee to the University, the students were a group of individuals no matter what color they were. That's all we focused on. That's an experience which I wish I could have had otherwise," he added. 7,000 . j16,0001 5,000 4,000 3,000 4,343 r ,.. :., a e :hs; ;c E -y : i 1987 1988 administrators are willing to speak in public on many issues, they try to avoid certain topics to escape being misunderstood and thus penalized by others. Office of Minority Affairs Vice Provost Charles Moody said, "People have a tendency to deal with racism on an individual level, not an :.-t4:ntin:-a 1P-1 "