On March 2, 2009 at a forum to discuss the Asian and Asian American Center (A3C), President Skorton, in response to a question about the future of program houses and safe spaces suggested that “program houses have to show enough interest to justify those expenses.” Skorton’s statement that students “should vote with their feet” is a popular argument used to hold students solely accountable for the future of their resources in a manner that absolves the University of its responsibility to preserve those resources. An issue as complex as program houses cannot be addressed with a dismissive attitude.

Decreased student interest in program houses stems not from student opposition to the mission and purpose of program houses, but rather from the University’s neglect of those spaces. North Campus, the location of the program houses, is an undesirable location for upperclassmen to live because it is populated mainly by freshmen. It seems program houses were altogether excluded from the University’s new Housing Initiatives for North and West Campus, despite the deteriorating and undesirable conditions of the facilities which house the program houses.

In opposing program houses and other safe spaces, many on campus argue that marginalized groups, by choosing to live together or by demanding adequate community-specific resources and spaces, “self-ghettoize” thereby perpetuating campus segregation. Such responses fail to acknowledge and proactively address the real discrimination responsible for creating an environment in which students from marginalized groups feel uncomfortable and at times unsafe engaging with students outside of their own communities. In addition, this reverse-discrimination argument creates a major stigma against program houses and safe spaces, and deflects accountability by blaming communities for their own marginalization.

The real reason for housing segregation is that Cornell is not truly a racially diverse campus. The largest percentage of black students in the history of Cornell was in 1974-1975, when black students represented 6.5 percent of Cornell’s undergraduates, but in Fall 2008, black students represented 5 percent of undergraduates and merely 4.3 percent of the class of 2012. In Fall 2008, Latino students comprised 5.5 percent of undergraduates. Furthermore, in Fall 2007, minorities made up only 15 percent of graduate students at Cornell. If more minority students were enrolled at Cornell, there would be a greater number of minorities living in program houses. Instead of confronting the real reasons for racial inequality on campus, the University limits discussion about race to an ineffective dialogue on the residential and social patterns of students of color. The expectation is that minority students should integrate into a “norm” with no discussion about why that norm is problematically assumed to be white.

At the March 2 forum, Dean of Students Kent Hubbell ’67 described his vision for a multicultural resource center of the 21st Century, in which all campus “diversity” groups will be collected into a single idealized space in Willard Straight Hall. Cornell’s plan to create a forced sense of multiculturalism comes at the expense of community-building within marginalized groups. Clumping many different groups into one central space decreases the physical space available for each group and confines the ideas and issues of different communities with different needs into one small forum in a way that will severely limit both the number of support staff available to those groups and the kinds of conversations that can take place. For example, a broad multicultural resource center would not distinguish between international students and American students, even though both constituencies have very different needs. Furthermore, such a center sets an unsettling precedent for the consolidation of all campus “diversity” resources into one location in a way that ignores the concerns facing marginalized students in all facets of their Cornell experience, including, for example, on-campus housing. Instead of minority voices rising from across campus, Hubbell’s vision for Willard Straight Hall clumps together the specific issues and needs of minority groups into a future in which the discussion of A3C and LGBT Resource Center will occur in the same feeble forum as the issues of every other marginalized community on campus.

It is unfortunate that not enough people know about the program house issue. This is the problem with diversity on campus: There is no discussion about its absence. We must stop accepting dismissive responses from the administration and instead choose to stand together as a truly diverse group of students. It is clear that the administration will continue to deflect accountability to students in order to avoid the issue of diversity, but we have to understand that accountability does not lie solely with us. Once we come to this understanding with our own analysis, then the real discussion can begin, allowing us to get to get at the root of the problem and take measures to solve it. Until that day, we mourn.