The Sun recently reported that Cornell’s LGBTQ community has gone without a director or manager since the summer and gone without an assistant dean for a year and a half. These positions have been vacant since before the economic climate worsened, so there is no reason they should remain unfilled. However, even in the current recession, the University should seek to fill these positions, as well as maintain its support for other diversity offices.

Skorton announced last month that all departments must make 5 percent budget cuts in the coming fiscal year. However, no one has addressed how this will affect the University’s commitment to diversity. The Office of the Dean of Students, one office that must make a cut to its budget, provides funding for offices such as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Resource Center, as well as the Office of Student Support and Diversity Education.

The associate director of the Office for Minority Educational Affairs, Leon Lawrence, recently said that the University hopes to increase its enrollment of African American, Latino/a and Native American students. While it is clear that the University continues to support racial and ethnic diversity, Cornell must make sure to continue supporting students of diverse sexual, ideological, economic and religious backgrounds as well. And as the enrollment of minority students rises, the University must maintain its support for such students.

While budget cuts must be made, they should not be implemented in areas that provide assistance and programming to students. Minority students often face additional struggles as they go through Cornell. Black and Latino/a students continue to graduate from the University at lower rates than Caucasian and Asian students, and members of the LGBTQ community are less likely than other students to be emotionally and financially supported by their families. As part of its commitment to diversity, Cornell must continue to aid these and other minority students to the best of its ability.

Cutting funding to groups that assist such students would be detrimental to the University as a whole. Without additional support, some minority students may find it hard or impossible to graduate. If such were the case, the minority enrollment at Cornell would surely drop. Yet colleges cannot properly educate students without exposing them to a range of opinions and ideas; such diversity cannot be taught in a classroom.

The University must strive to maintain its high quality by continuing to provide support to all minority students. The first step in this direction should be to give the LGBTQ community the staff and resources that they need.