When Pomona sent out the Class of 2020 acceptance letters, the school website proudly announced that the incoming class is comprised of 52.3 percent domestic students of color, which is up from 51 percent last year. That statistic officially certifies my college as diverse, doesn't it? There are more students of color than white students, so we must be an incredibly progressive school, right? I myself would have answered this question with an immediate "yes." However, the real answer, which I am becoming more aware of every day, is absolutely "no."
As a white student from Tennessee, my liberal arts college in southern California is the most liberal and progressive place that I think I've ever set foot in. I came from a private, Christian, all-girls high school wherein exactly 5 of the 96 girls in my grade were not white. I arrived at college and was immediately overwhelmed by an onslaught of acronyms that I had never heard of. As I muddled through orientation, I found out my college has an Office of Black Student Affairs (OBSA), a Chican@ Latin@ Student Affairs (CLSA), an Asian American Mentor Program (AAMP), an International Student Mentor Program (ISMP), a Queer Questioning and Allied Mentor Program (QQAMP), and a Pan African Student Alliance (PASA), just to name a few. With all of these groups and mentor programs, I assumed that there was no way anyone could ever feel unsupported. As far as I knew, everyone had a community where they could feel welcome, which was incredibly impressive from my Southern perspective, so I assumed everyone would be happy regardless of their race. I was completely wrong.
During my first semester, I attended a student-trustee retreat focused on diversity, hoping to understand just how progressive my school really was. During one of the discussions, an Asian American student spoke up about one of her classes, noting that half of the students were white and half were of color. I expected her to praise the college for its progress, but instead she made it clear that she still did not feel comfortable speaking up in that class due to the lack of diversity. As a white person, I would have assumed that a 50/50 class would make everyone comfortable - I never would have realized how much more there is to diversity than just statistics.
At the beginning of sophomore year, I attended a diversity panel with my freshmen mentees. At the end, an African American student stood up and said how frustrating it is that people assume that, because she's black, she's low income. "It's incredibly offensive," she said, "because both of my parents are doctors, and we're an affluent family, but people automatically assume I'm poor just because I'm black. How is that supposed to make me feel 'supported'?"
Finally, last night, one of my friends sat down to talk to me about a certain academic department. I assumed that, because he is a person of color and so is his professor, he would never feel uncomfortable in the department because of his race. However, he informed me that, due to various events, he has felt targeted because of his race this entire semester, and that he's not comfortable reaching out to anyone in the department. As such, he has fallen victim to the psychological phenomenon known as stereotype threat, and will likely not perform as well as his white classmates through no fault of his own. I was incredibly saddened and angry to hear one of my best friends say that he feels racially targeted at what is supposedly one of the most progressive schools in the nation.
I do not have a solution to this problem other than the obvious need for institutional change, especially at the faculty and trustee levels. The administration clearly needs to be comprised of more people of color, or else students of color will never actually "thrive" like our college claims they do on the racially diverse pamphlets they send out. I do believe that my own awareness of this issue is a step in the right direction, though. As a white student, I never would have realized these problems could still exist despite all of the support groups for students of color. As such, I intend to continue to raise awareness about it to others who likely would have assumed the same thing as me. I used to think that diversity was a threshold that a school could achieve, like 52.3% students of color. However, it becomes more apparent each day that that couldn't be farther from the truth. "Diversity" isn't a goal you can reach - it's a constant effort that a school has to make to ensure that every student feels as supported as possible. While my college has come a long way, we have much more ground left to cover than we admit in our brochures.
