Toxic Campus Climates

It’s been a dismal year for racial harmony on campus, but some scholars say conflict can serve as a learning experience for the entire community 

By Kendra Hamilton

The rings and robes have been ordered and there’s both joy and uncertainty in the air as campuses go through the annual rite of graduation. But, across the nation, there are also pockets of administrators who can’t wait to close the books on the 2005-2006 academic year.

- Boulder, Colo., where threatening e-mails to campus athletes and a female student leader — “You will die if you run for student government” — have rattled Black and Hispanic students and embarrassed the administration.

- Chicago, where a  “straight thuggin’ party” — attended by White University of Chicago students wearing chains, baggy clothing and handcuffs as they guzzled alcohol and listened to 50 Cent and Notorious B.I.G. — has offended the Southside neighborhoods surrounding the campus while roiling the tranquil waters of affluent Hyde Park.

- And, of course, Durham, N.C., where allegations of underage drinking, racial slurs and gang rape have tarred, perhaps permanently, Duke University’s squeaky clean reputation in athletics.

“Unfortunately, it always seems to take a crisis” to focus attention on the stresses and strains of students’ daily interactions with each other, says Dr. Jesús Treviño, associate provost and head of the Center for Multicultural Excellence at the University of Denver. But instead of commissions, head-shaking and hand-wringing, he says “what we really need is a different model for engaging the entire [academic] community.”

It’s a sentiment others have drawn as well. “The crisis at Duke, while certainly painful and traumatic for them, is not particular to that one campus,” says Dr. William B. Harvey, who left the American Council on Education last year to become vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity at the University of Virginia.