I heard about an alleged incident of racism at Queen’s University on CBC radio this morning.
He described that a faculty member was reportedly taunted by engineering students and “pushed off a sidewalk.” The announcer said that the faculty member was “coloured.”
The announcer read the opening I thought, “Man, Queen’s is so white.”
He continued, “… in the past Queen’s has been accused of having a ‘culture of whiteness,’”
The spokesperson from Queen’s before saying the regular comments about the incident being bad and being dealt with said that these things happen at other schools in Canada too. That is not a good thing to say and reflects poorly on the school’s attitude towards discrimination.
I was at a conference at Queen’s three years ago and was shocked by the poor mix of ethnicities that I saw. I mentioned it to friends I visited at the time and they confirmed my observations. We all attended a different university. I had sillily thought that the ethnic mix at my alma mater was typical in Canada.
The Whig-Standard has an article from yesterday about Queen’s appointing a diversity adviser.
Queen’s University, which has been criticized for its “culture of whiteness,” has appointed a special high-level diversity adviser.
[...]
He would also like to see other races and cultures reflected more in what is taught at the university.
His appointment comes as Queen’s is in the midst of a wide-ranging review of its diversity and how welcoming it is to minority students.
The debate was initiated by a study delivered to the university senate last year.
Five years in the making, the Henry Report found the university has a hard time retaining qualified faculty who are either aboriginal or from a visible minority group and that students, faculty and administrators all play a role in a culture of “whiteness and maleness” at Queen’s.
Queen’s appoints diversity adviser; ‘Culture of whiteness’ hurts visible minorities, recent report says Whig-Standard 21 Nov 2007