On Tuesday night, I received an e-mail from President John DeGioia, reassuring the Georgetown community that he “will not tolerate homophobia or any other form of discrimination on our campus.” The e-mail marked exactly a month of DeGioia’s silence after a Georgetown student was assaulted for being gay, so I guess you could say it came in the nick of time, just as I was starting to wonder whose side DeGioia was on, anyway.
Tardiness wasn’t the e-mail’s only fault. It offered no concrete suggestions, and vague offers to engage “in productive and civil discourse” and to build and sustain “a respectful campus community” sounded empty following DeGioia’s decision not to appear at a town hall meeting last night on LGTBQ issues.
When Georgetown’s administrators react rather than act, a hardly atypical response to a situation like this, they foster the type of disconnected, apathetic community sentiment that I feel is all too prevalent. Yes, a bias-related crime did occur, and I’m glad that Jack DeGioia doesn’t approve. But the assault also raises issues about Georgetown’s culture, one in which homophobic slurs are thrown around like frisbees. As hard as they try, GU Pride alone can’t force the community to consider why this incident occurred. Our administration should contribute more to the community than a five paragraph email. It’s time for Georgetown’s administration to stop treating campus issues as mere nuisances that, if ignored, just might go away.
That was certainly their hope with the alcohol policy. Banning beer pong and a bias-related crime are worlds apart, but the tight lips with which the administration dealt with both issues aren’t. The only difference is that regarding the alcohol policy, it looks as though they may have succeeded. Following the initial uproar, Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson made a single change to the policy and announced the formation of a committee to investigate the effects of the alcohol policy. Now the protesting and rallying and discontent that blanketed campus seems to have died out, or at least died down.
It would be foolish to call upon Georgetown’s undergraduates to rise up and force the University to engage us in a substantive dialogue. That job is relegated to smaller, more effective interest groups for a reason—members of these groups are self-selecting because of their passion and dedication. So let GU Pride lead us in a discussion on tolerance. Let Work Hard, Play Hard spearhead the fight against the alcohol policy. Let the NAACP and the D. Pierce Nixons of this world guide our dialogue about race.
But time and time again, Georgetown’s administration fails to take this initial energy and transform it into a larger discussion, resulting ultimately in no changes in Georgetown’s policies. Now is the time for the administration to open up a stream of communication with students in any number of ways. Try more town halls or increased participation in the student press—both the Voice and the Hoya—or greater availability to students so that a rally in Red Square isn’t a prerequisite for an appointment with DeGioia. Change is due, because Georgetown’s most effective leader shouldn’t be JT III and I shouldn’t have to wait until March each year to realize that I’m part of a community larger than my immediate circle of friends.
