Faculty diversity, controversial Backpage discussed at forum

By Matthew McKee | For the Thresher

The lack of faculty diversity and responses to the Thresher’s Sept. 15 Backpage dominated discussion at a diversity forum Sept. 27 in Farnsworth Pavilion at the Student Center. About 100 people attended the event, and five faculty members served as panelists.

English Professor and Baker College Master Jose Aranda, History Professor Alex Byrd, Sociology Professor Emeritus Chandler Davidson, Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman and Sociology Professor Bridget Gorman sat on the panel. Office of Multicultural Affairs Director Cathi Clack selected the panel and organized the forum in collaboration with members of ADVANCE, an organization that discusses and advocates cultural diversity and exchange. Clack, who is also the Assistant Dean of Students for Student Life, moderated the panel.

Much of the conversation centered on the Sept. 15 Backpage, which included jokes about racial and ethnic stereotypes. Forman said some people have accused the administration of withholding appropriate amounts of force in reacting to the Backpage.

He said a strong campus response originating outside the student body would have interrupted the constructive conversations that have followed. Forman said because the Thresher is an organization open to and run by students, it is the students who should deliver strong responses.

“It’s a much more powerful statement for students to say, ‘I was hurt,’” Forman said.

Aranda said the Backpage is primarily an issue for the Rice community to address.

“Answers to community hurt come from the community,” he said.

Lovett College senior Dara Ufot said the Thresher had poor timing by printing the Backpage during Families Weekend. She said she worried parents might form negative opinions about Rice after reading the jokes.

Ufot, a member of the Student Admission Council’s Minority Interests Committee, said some members of the Rice community, as well as prospective members of the Rice community, felt attacked by the satirical content.

“Some recruiters were asking, ‘How am I going to recruit [minorities] if I don’t feel comfortable here myself?’” Ufot said.

Attendees and the panel also discussed broader issues that surfaced from reactions to the Backpage. Byrd said reactions to the jokes indicate wider, unresolved problems in the community that are at the heart of Rice’s diversity challenges.

Many letters written to the Thresher the week after the jokes were printed addressed the right to free speech. In his prepared opening statement, Forman responded to these letters.

“Any college community must serve as home for any free speech. … It’s essential that we err on the side of freedom. This comes at a human cost,” he said. “Freedom of speech is crucial to pursuit of diversity.”

Davidson said censorship is not an appropriate solution and that the newspaper has a right to freedom of the press.

The forum also addressed the nature of the Backpage’s approach to satire. Some participants said satirical humor has a place in the university, but question how effectively the diversity jokes executed such humor.

The satirical Backpage has been a part of the Thresher since 1976, and this is not the first time it has generated controversy, Davidson said.

Another topic of discussion was the Princeton Review’s August ranking of Rice as the top university for “lots of race/class interaction.”

In his opening remarks, Forman said he believes the ranking is merited but that not as a mark of complete success and that improvement of diversity issues is needed.

“We don’t fail the way other people fail.” Forman said. “We’ve set ourselves very high goals. We seek diversity because it’s a self-imposed goal of what we want and what we need to be.”

After the discussion ended, the panel accepted written questions from the audience. One attendee asked about diversity within Rice’s residential college system. Students are randomly assigned to one of the colleges as freshmen, and Forman said the randomized process promotes diversity.

Byrd said other universities have experimented with other approaches to housing, including freshmen-only dorms and substance-free housing.

“I think we have to take seriously the people who think that lack of choice is a real problem,” he said. “I think we’ve lost ground…. We can benefit from a long, hard look at the college system.”

Aranda said Rice does not offer enough courses that teach about different groups of people.

“I can really tell you: you need more [diverse courses],” he said. “The current offerings are pretty tame…. The least we can do is give [the student body] the tools to deal with [diversity].”

Aranda said a real problem lies in the lack of diversity of Rice faculty. He said Rice employs only 10 black professors and six Hispanic professors. Many students said they agree that the Rice faculty should be more diverse.

Invited guest Larry Payne, a Houston-based social activist, said Rice should consider views from outside the Rice community and that the university needs to devote itself to diversity beyond numbers.

“Diversity is not just about numbers…. At some point we have to discuss pluralism … where the individual person counts just because they are a human being,” he said.

After the forum, Gorman said she wants more discussion about diversity to take place on Rice’s campus and that she enjoyed seeing the respectful atmosphere of Wednesday’s forum. She said Rice still faces difficult challenges in diversity.

“Ultimately, to fix this, we have to get more aggressive and creative,” Gorman said. “Things like [the forum] are necessary, but they are a drop in the bucket in terms of what we need to do.”

Diana Yen/ Thresher staff

Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman, Sociology Professor Bridget Gorman and Sociology Professor Emeritus Chandler Davidson listen to audience comments at Wednesday's diversity forum. About 100 people attended the forum entitled "From the Princeton Review to the the Thresher: Perspectives on Diversity at Rice."

September 29, 2006

The Student Newspaper of Rice University

Faculty diversity, controversial Backpage discussed at forum

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