By Jeniece Jamison
North Carolina State University’s website says it values diversity and benefits from multiple viewpoints and perspectives. Ultimately, N.C. State believes diversity is crucial to its mission to educate its students and prepare them for jobs post graduation, and to become productive citizens. But, some factions within the university don’t believe this is necessarily the case for them.
Preston Keith of N.C. State’s GLBT Center led a workshop on how college campuses create systemic oppression for members of the GLBT Center that are people of color. He said sexual, economic, racial and cultural identities aren’t brought into the discussion when it comes to creating safe spaces for students that identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. And that can create obstacles for the student experience.
“When we reduce people to single aspects of their identity, we recognize that opportunities for those identities to be privileged as opposed to recognizing other aspects of their marginalized identity is going to happen,” Keith said.
There is statistical evidence that non-heterosexual students of color face a higher climb to the top of the ivory tower. The Atlantic reports nearly half of all LGBT students of color experienced verbal harassment from both their sexual orientation and race or ethnicity, and 15 percent had been physically harassed or assaulted.
According to the Association of American Universities, three in four LGBT students reported experiencing sexual harassment. NPR reported that only seven percent of colleges have resources for lesbian and gay students.
Keith said oppression in the classroom started well before the first American colleges were established. He referenced the Buggery Act of 1533 established by the English. That was also the law of the land for colonists here, and affected native populations in the United States.
“So if you think about the settling and colonizing of this country, that was like manifest destiny. Our values, our culture, our religion are superior. And therefore we have sort of this God-given right to take your land, cultivate the savages,” one participant in the crowd said.
“And so that rationale and the way that has manifested, it now shows up in all these subtle ways.”
Going forward, Keith said one way staff, faculty and other students can support GLBT on college campuses is by becoming an accomplice.
“I define an accomplice as someone who is recognizing the systems of oppression that exists for folks, recognizing that this system is bound up in the liberation of all people and is actively working to dismantle it,” Keith said.
“Someone who has recognized that we have criminalized identifying as GLBT, and as a queer person of color, and is not afraid to go against that system.”
He also said its important for those leading the classrooms and other spaces on campus, such as housing and student organizations, constantly examine their policies and practices, and how they’re impacting the student experience. And affirming all aspects of GLBT student’s identities can help them when its time for them to move on to their respective careers.
“We create the space that is safe and affirming for students. Then they go into the workforce and they don’t have that same safety net that exists,” Keith said. And so how do we help students prepare students transition into that lack of safety that might exist for them, but also teach them out to look for those safe spaces when they go to work?”
“And also recognizing that we need to change the way our work policies and our work environments are impacting GLBT identified folks as well,”
Keith said its imperative that this happens, because the statistics on employment and economic discrimination against those who don’t identify as heterosexual and are people of color are staggering.
According to the Williams Institute at UCLA, 24 percent of lesbian and bisexual women live in poverty, compared to 19 percent of heterosexual women. African-American same-sex couples are move likely to be poor than married heterosexual African-American couples. Fifty-five percent of GLBT Native Americans live in poverty.
Considering these factors, Keith said preparing GLBT students and all faculty and staff for the challenges they’ll face in the classroom and post-graduation can make a lifetime of difference.
