Teach-In Pushes Greater Diversity

Two weeks after holding a series of events calling for more diversity at Harvard, a loose coalition of students from various campus groups held a teach-in focused on diversity Monday.

The students—representing causes from ethnic studies to sexual assault policy reform—billed their event as an effort to “educate the administration, the student body and ourselves about what real diversity means.”

The teach-in, which took place in Ticknor Lounge, drew a crowd of about 30, according to organizers.

Student organizers said the coalition formed around a common feeling that administrators have been unresponsive to student groups’ calls for change.

“A lot of student groups have big ideas about how to improve this school and are frustrated that the school doesn’t seem to be listening or interested,” said Sarah B. Levit-Shore ’04, a leader of the Coalition Against Sexual Violence.

Students from other groups including the Black Students Association (BSA), the Radcliffe Union of Students and HarvardWatch as well as advocates of ethnic, queer and Latino studies made presentations about the history and present status of their movements.

“This loose diversity coalition had been having meetings for several weeks, but a lot of us didn’t know details about the different groups represented,” said Yumi Lee ’04, who led the event. “Learning each other’s stories was a great way to motivate us and make us realize that we’re not so isolated.”

Other speakers at the teach-in also emphasized the need for cooperation among groups.

“The question of diversity is not a matter of picking and choosing between different movements, as if they were luxury hors d’oeuvres that we can decide if we want to indulge or skip over,” said Marques J. Redd ’04, an officer of the BSA.

The coalition has noted three categories in which Harvard is lacking in diversity—curricular diversity, Faculty diversity and “diversity of campus voices.”

Redd addressed curricular diversity, recounting the history of the Afro-American studies department and charging University President Lawrence H. Summers with “mediocre support of diversity.”

Though no individual group at the teach-in exclusively focuses on Faculty diversity, the issue has been a primary cause of the new coalition.

Over pre-frosh weekend students from the coalition staged a protest wearing suits and white masks to represent what they say is a homogenous Faculty.

Coalition leaders also called for student input into areas such as sexual violence policy, workers’ rights and University governance.

Students say the coalition isn’t planning any more large events this year, but that the teach-in helped build a solid foundation for the fall.

“We’re really just in the very beginning stages,” Lee said. “We have a lot of work to do over the summer and next year.”

—Staff writer Sarah M. Seltzer can be reached at sseltzer@fas.harvard.edu.