Apparently, the Wheaton College administration believes that caring for the “oppressed and the marginalized” and respecting “dialogue with people of other faiths or no faith” means parting ways with their first female African-American tenured professor after she stated that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
In December, Wheaton announced that Dr. Larycia Hawkins’ (Doc Hawk) comment on social media conflicted with their Statement of Faith. Last week, a joint statement was released, revealing that Doc Hawk had agreed to leave her college of six years.
I attended Wheaton College for two years. The school was academically rigorous and filled with a lot of fantastic and supportive people. However, Wheaton fell very short when it came to diversity. The student body was almost exclusively White, evangelical, Republican and heterosexual. During my tenure there, a philosophy professor was fired for converting to Catholicism — clearly, the college has remained unwavering in its stance to uphold what they believe is the “correct” Christian interpretation of the Bible.
Here is the overarching problem: Wheaton maintains that they are committed to creating a diverse community, but how can they expect to achieve diversity if they remain unwilling to listen to differing voices?
I challenge Wheaton College, as well as other predominantly White institutions (PWIs), to look at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) as schools that create a campus climate encouraging students and faculty to explore and embrace diversity. MSIs, which include historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions (AANAPISIs), and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), actively serve high numbers of low-income, first-generation and underrepresented populations. Rather than just preaching about the importance of access in higher education, MSIs provide it.
If PWIs are serious about increasing their campus diversity, and not just concerned with meeting minimum quotas, they should take note of some effective ways MSIs serve their students.
