In the wake of NPHC, a council of historically black fraternities, boycotting homecoming, Student Government and Students Invested in Change hosted a forum Tuesday night to discuss the race issues across campus and to brainstorm solutions.
Many students were looking for a cultural change at USC and hoped to see changes happen soon. Several students wanted to see more education across campus about diversity issues.
“I’m hoping that everyone can come to a better understanding and they need to raise more awareness and there is a lot of tension between the races,” third-year elementary education student Corey Hawthorne said.
The forum began with a series of questions to the room. Everyone was asked to stand if they had ever felt discriminated against or seen discrimination of an individual on USC’s campus, and every person in the room stood.
Nearly everyone who spoke agreed that race is an incredibly important factor in the college experience. Numerous students said they feel far more comfortable and included when associating with people of the same race.
The majority of the people who spoke at the forum agreed that USC has a diversity issue. Many said they are the only African American student in all of their classes and the only African Americans on their entire halls.
The phrase “black USC” was discussed in-depth at the forum. Attendants had differing opinions as to whether “black USC” creates an inclusive community or an exclusive community. One misconception addressed at the forum was that "black USC" events are only for African Americans — in actuality, they're open to all races.
The discussion kept winding back to solutions, or the lack of them. Student Government (SG) came under scrutiny for what they can do to fix the diversity problem at USC. There were a few student government delegates at the forum, but members of the executive leadership were not in attendance.
“[I am] on the multicultural affairs committee on student senate and we are supposed to represent our constituents when things like this happen on campus,” second-year pre-pharmacy student Anna Spuhler said. “We’re supposed to be involved, we’re supposed to hear what our constituents want from Student Government so that we can actually make a change. Because right now, I don’t think a lot of people know what the role of Student Government is.”
Many in the forum didn’t feel that SG was doing nearly enough to help promote diversity on campus and said that they don’t know how to address SG to give suggestions — and SG representatives agreed with their frustration.
“With diversity on campus, [student government] has done a lot this year to promote diversity inclusion on campus it's something we champion with the Carolina creed,” second-year political science and German student Kaitlin McClamrock said. “It’s something that we all say we support but a lot of times there’s not a lot of substance to the claims that we make of supporting diversity.”
Some people seemed satisfied to just get a platform to share their thoughts and opinions, but many felt there is a still a long way to go. There was a general consensus that students need to be more educated in terms of diversity, but also that more students and organizations need to get involved in this issue. While many thought that the forum was a step in the right direction, they agreed it wasn't enough.
“This forum is another tangible event that we have supporting diversity and inclusion on campus because these are things that we as a student body value and that we as Student Government value as well,” McClamrock said.