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Segregation now? Some still see racial divide on campus
COLLEGE PARK, Maryland (CNN) -- At college campuses across the country, students may be attending the same classes, but often they're socializing only with people of the same race or ethnic background. In the student union, in the cafeteria, all across campus -- students are "self-segregating." Beverly Daniel Tatum has explored the phenomenon -- known as "Balkanization"-- in her book titled, "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" "It's a developmental process," she says. "As young people move into their teen-age years, they start thinking about questions of identity. They do start looking for people with similar experience, similar backgrounds to them, and they do tend to cluster in that way." But some critics say this promotes separation, intolerance, even racism. Aisha Jaleel, a student at the University of Maryland, said, "I'm not a member of any Asian group on campus because I think diversity divides more than it helps." 'They understood ...'
Other University of Maryland students, however, expressed different views. "I identified more with other Hispanics and Latinos because ... they understood culturally what my parents expected or what I was facing in terms of juggling my family, a job," said student Lisy Lara. For senior Jamila Hall, social time is time to relax after a day of diversity. "In most of my classes, I am the only African-American student, sometimes the only woman," she said. "So when I leave class I've already had my experience, so to speak." Time spent with her friends, Hall said, is "really the time when I want to go to someone who understands being in my position." Self-segregation can also be a way to cope with racism. Hall said, "When I walked into one of my freshman year honors seminars, somebody looked at me and asked me if I had the right room. I take that as they thought I didn't belong in that class." Senior Ryan Spiegel says he feels comfortable with his peer group of Jewish males. "I have a bond with them because we have similar childhoods," he said. "We have similar religious beliefs." Spiegel says, "As long as we continue to make sure that self-segregation isn't the only thing that's happened; as long as it has, as its counterpart, the ability and the willingness to go out and interact with students who are not similar to yourself, then it's OK to self-segregate." Does it defeat diversity?Dinesh D'Souza, author of 'Illiberal Education,' says self-segregation promotes intolerance. "If you create a diverse campus and then the African-American students are to themselves, and then the Hispanic students are to themselves, you defeat the purposes of diversity itself," D'Souza said. "What you create is, in a sense, ethnically homogeneous camps within a diverse framework." But Mitchell Chang, a UCLA professor who studies diversity in higher education, quotes studies showing that students' involvement in racial and ethnic clubs actually increases their interaction across racial lines. "They're more likely to be involved in campus activities, and when students are more likely to be involved in campus activities, they're more likely to socialize across race," Chang said. Whether self-segregation is even a problem may be a matter of perception. Tatum, who is also a dean at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, said, "When white students are together, it's not seen as, quote, a group of white students. It's a group of individuals getting together, having fun, whatever it is. When black students or Latino students or Asian students are sitting together, the first thing that people tend to comment on is that group label." Meanwhile, at the University of Maryland, the college president, C.D. Mote, says the school sees encouraging interaction between students of all races as part of its mission. "How much they learn from each other, how they can work together and how they can prepare to work and prosper in our society is, of course, what this university is all about," Mote said. RELATED STORIES: Boom in college enrollment by minorities seen RELATED SITES: Racism on a College Campus |
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