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Also by Maivue Xiong:

by Maivue Xiong

Thursday, October 6, 2005

How can someone possibly claim to be "all for diversity and a nondiscriminatory campus" when she is dumbfounded by the definition of diversity itself? If teaching assistant mandatory diversity training is infringing on Darryn Beckstrom's freedom of thoughts, couldn't we all argue that any required classes in high school or certain required college credits infringe on our freedom to explore only things we are interested in?

Companies, universities and all other institutions are bound to have certain requirements for their workers or employees to participate in, in hopes of meeting the objectives of their institutions. When I had a mandatory orientation to attend on the ethics of interning for the Lieutenant Governor's Office, did I throw my hands up in the air and claim that the office is restricting me of my rights because it doesn't allow me to define my own rules of ethics? Or do I complain about wasting my time and ask for a refund had I paid for it?

No, I attended the orientation because there obviously was a purpose behind it being held. My job simply was to follow through while keeping my mind open and attempting to learn how others see things.

University of Wisconsin-Madison's Plan 2008 is an all campus initiative to diversify its student body by the year 2008. Since teaching assistants have a major advantage in reaching the numerous students they TA for, it only make sense for them to understand their students' perspectives and needs as much as possible. Students are bound to come from a variety of backgrounds and a mandatory requirement for teaching and project assistants to attend one three-hour workshop is asking very little of its assistants in broadening their perspectives on diversity issues.

The goal of these workshops are not infringing on anyone's freedom of speech or any other First Amendment rights but simply helping assistants understand where their minority students come from. Do teaching assistants ever notice that their minority students tend to speak up less in class, not because they are dumb or shy, but because they feel uncomfortable in the space created by the TA and their peers?

During the past three years on this campus, I felt the majority of TAs could not understand where I was coming from because my perspectives were so different from theirs and the majority of my peers. The mandatory workshops attempt to bridge this misunderstanding and if Darryn Beckstrom got nothing out of it, aside from her wasting three precious hours, perhaps it is because the idea of diversity is completely strange and irrelevant to people who have never felt marginalized or discriminated based on their skin color before.

Unfortunately, for some of us, we understand this concept too well. It's even hard for us to put these 'discriminated against feelings' into words because the discrimination is always subtle and indirect. However subtle they are, the messages are always communicated clearly. After years of indirect but consistent degradation of our ideas and beliefs, these negative engrained images easily effect our determination of our self-worth.

I always feared stepping into a new discussion room at the start of a new semester because I didn't know how sensitive and understanding my new TA would be of my views. I'm not implying that I wouldn't want my TA or peers to "say anything that might offend [my] my group of people who are perceived to be socially disadvantaged or marginalized" but I would simply appreciate more sensitivity towards diverse ideas because I personally make the time to learn where others come from, in hopes of always creating a comfortable space for discussion by showing that I understand them although I don't always agree with them.

These mandatory workshops are a minor step in helping teaching assistants reach as many of their students as possible. They have their own objectives and these objectives can only be reached if the project and teaching assistants attend them with the right frame of mind. Darryn Beckstrom pushed her training off as long as possible because she felt it irrelevant. When she finally attended one, she still didn't understand its purpose which only led her to confirm what she already came in believing — that the training was wasteful.

If she is so concerned about keeping issues such as diversity in public forums for mature adults to discuss, I suggest her bringing up the topic in her classroom discussions and letting students talk it out. In the meantime, taking the time to understand where her minority students come from would make a world of a difference to them, and she even might learn a thing or two in the process if she allowed herself to.

MaiVue K. Xiong (mvxiong@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in political science and legal studies.

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Anonymous (October 6, 2005 @ 3:21am):

"diversity training" is PC extremism.

-an alumnus who majored in political science and journalism ... and law

Anonymous (October 6, 2005 @ 7:34am):

Plan 2008 does nothing at all to increase the diversity of the student body. It is concerned solely with race. It would only increase the diversity if you assume that different skin colors automatically give new and worthwhile ideas. That racist equation of race with ideas is at the very heart of the "diversity" scam.

Anonymous (October 6, 2005 @ 8:36am):

If only racial minorities have the capacity to understand the concept of diversity, isn't diversity training for the racial majority pointless?

Anonymous (October 6, 2005 @ 9:41am):

"I always feared stepping into a new discussion room at the start of a new semester because I didn't know how sensitive and understanding my new TA would be of my views."

So it's the TAs fault that you are nervous? Newsflash - that happens to everyone at some point in their lives! Isn't that part of what being in college is all about - overcoming fears, learning to be self-sufficient, communicating with those who are different than you?

Sheesh, if you expect everyone in the world to be "sensitive and understanding" of your views before they even know you, you really do have a lot to learn!

Anonymous (October 6, 2005 @ 3:54pm):

I agree with all of the above posts. Diversity is nothing more than an opportunity to bash non-minorities. They assume that because you're white you are a racist, that if you're heterosexual you are a homophobic bigot, that if you're male you are a sexist, etc.

We're so sick of Madison liberals forcing their extremist ideology down out throats. They don't even have the brains to realize that they have only turned people off to the idea of promoting diversity. Instead they have created a groundswell of apathy. No one cares anymore becuasee nobody wants to waste their time listening to a bunch of aging hippies making complete pigs of themselves. This is college, for crying out loud! Whatever happened to maturity and intelligent debate? This is what my parents are paying for me to put up with! What will my degree be worth if employers knew what's really going on here?

Anonymous (October 6, 2005 @ 5:02pm):

MaiVue, it sounds like you're just having an inferiority complex. Somehow, you got the impression that Madison is full of white supremacists who are just itchin' to rip you to shreads. Wake up, kid! No one is trying to persecute you here! You are among thousands of college students like yourself who have far more pressing concerns than making your likfe miserable.

Darryn exposed the truth about diversity training. How she described it is exactly the way it is. It's nothing more than a guilt trip foisted upon the rest of us by a bunch of wackos extremist who somehow got the impression that they could get away with it forever. Well, it all backfired a few years ago, and they have no one to blame but themselves for it.

Finish your education, go out and find a decent paying job and live happily ever after!

Ryan Quintana (October 6, 2005 @ 5:07pm):

As one of the "taken aback" moderators at the developmental session that is the basis of this string, I just wanted to clarify a few positions that Ms. Beckstrom posited in her email, adding to the argument of MaiVue Xiong. I must begin with the inappropriately titled piece. I say inappropriately titled not because of my strong feelings about the uncomplicated discussion of "rights," constitutional or otherwise that Ms. Beckstrom alludes to in her piece, rather I think it fair to mention that the Professional Development program that she attended is not mandatory.
Rather, it is an optional program that allows graduate students to move from inexperienced pay to experienced pay, meaning that Ms. Beckstrom chose to attend this meeting, a choice that may have been determined by her pocketbook, but a choice nonetheless. (And if the Political Science Dept required this perhaps her beef should be with her departmental administrators)

She also mentions that in response to her question about what diversity is, rather than give a stock answer, say one that "forced students to consume what is considered to be 'politically correct' by those in Bascom Hill," we threw the question out to the group. This was not in fear of her question and definitely was not a ruse; instead, it was an attempt to hear the voices of those with whom we were having a discussion, something I fear may not be valued in Ms. Beckstrom's own class.

As a note, at the beginning of this session we asked the question, "Do you think being concerned about diversity is your responsibility as a TA or is it simply your responsibility to convey the material. Why or why not?" Followed by, "Please be respectful of other's ideas." We did not have our poltically correct guns hidden under the table ready to fire on the first close-minded person that crossed our path. We request, in fact when I participate, I almost demand ideas that run against my own. This, in my mind, can only be defined as the attempt to "ask students..to repesctfully debate these issues in an open forum like mature adults." Maybe Ms. Beckstrom was late to this part of the meeting. It was right after the part where we specifically state, "We do not have all the answers, we just want to start a discussion."

When Ms. Beckstrom's response was not specifically addressed, I returned to her comment and asked her specifically if her question was addressed. To which I received no real response.

In the non-mandatory Professional development workshop, we encourage all voices to be heard, not out of any sense of political correctness, but rather because any discussion about these issues (and discussion is what we request from the outset) needs to have voices from both sides. Rather than voice her concerns about the infringement of first amendment privileges to a group of her peers, she turned to your paper, and in the actual discussion she asked an open ended question, to which, I must add, she had no answer herself.

I think that it is very important that people in a position of power--and at this university Teaching Assistants have a position of power--that we all must question the issue of privilege that I feel lies at the heart of Ms. Beckstrom's response. The mandatory training at the University of Colorado that she mentioned started as a response to a string of incidents at the university (the assault of a student of color at the University, who had his jaw broken b/c of his race, racist grafitti in residence halls, and the use of racist epithets in a classroom altercation). Those mentioned cannot begin to include the more subtle forms of discrimination and intimidation that happen on a campus that rivals the UW for its racial homogeneity. To assume that attempts to discuss the issue of diversity is an attempt to infringe on one's first amendment rights strikes me as privilege. The privilege to not be concerned about something that others deal with every day of their lives, whether they want to or not. The privilege to think that a discussion of diversity is not only unnecessary, but inherently wrong.

To question the necessity of a three hour meeting on diversity (I say that again for emphasis: a three hour meeting) I think answers itself.

When administrators, professors, teaching assistants, and students gather together to discuss these issues we do not sit in a room twirling our thumbs and wondering how we can infringe on others' rights by forcing them to be poltically correct. (And since we don't actually go to TA's classrooms to police them, I feel like this claim is the most fatuous in all of her argument). Rather, we are concerned with creating an enviornment where all have the opportunity to learn, where all can feel safe, and where all can excel.

Ryan Quintana
Doctoral Candidate
History Department

Anonymous (October 8, 2005 @ 1:23pm):

These comments just goes to show that some of you are JUST as IGNORANT as this article proves you to be.

So, why is it that when minorities try to educate others about discrimination and diversity, they get blamed for being TOO aggressive and "infringing on peoples' rights", but if their attempts to do so (i.e. Plan 2008) don't go as planned, they get blamed for it as well? Funny how no one is really blaming the Univeristy, but in the end it's always being brought back to the minorities. Yes! MINORITIES, including women and LGBTQ...NOT JUST ETHINIC! Some of us CAN'T "live happily ever after" even if we want to. Obviously "YOU really have a lot to learn" if you think this fairy tale ending applies to every race, sex, or person with different sexual preference. Open your eyes...or yet, open your mouth, and LETS, yes...LETS engage ourselves in "intelligent debates" by throwing "aging hippies making complete pigs of themselves" back and forth. There's some maturity for you.

So...here's my final question. Who here would like to be a minority for a day? Anyone? No takers? I thought so!