The Georgetown Confessions Facebook page has garnered a huge following in recent weeks, with 1,144 likes at the time of publication. The page allows users to submit anonymous “confessions,” which are then posted for public consumption. Far from a harmless Internet fad, however, Georgetown Confessions has become the latest forum for debate concerning race and class issues.
“Affirmative action is an abomination because it discriminates against Jewish-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Caucasians who are more than capable of earning similar grades, and who are callously thrown under the bus by people who don’t have the capacity to achieve based on merit,” wrote one student. “Just because someone who is in a financial struggle cannot themselves [sic] pay for their tuition does not mean they haven’t earned the right to be at this institution!” argues another.
The virulent cyber bickering occurring on this page is indicative of a larger problem endemic to the Georgetown community. As is clear from students’ inabilities to address these issues in a sensitive, nuanced way, there are tensions that have been percolating under the veneer of a cohesive student body at a prestigious university. These are likely exacerbated by the fact that Georgetown lacks the breadth of racial and socioeconomic diversity that can be encountered at many public institutions.
In 2009, after several disturbing bias incidents were reported on campus and an extensive appeal was made to the University by the Student Commission for Unity, the administration sought to correct this through the Main Campus Initiative on Diversity and Inclusiveness. The initiative looked to modify hiring practices as well as to grant more scholarships to students in need. While it got off to a strong start, enthusiasm waned as the years went on.
It is evident that institutional diversity initiatives have fallen short at Georgetown. The ignorance that pervades the Facebook conversation about the gradient of experiences across the socioeconomic and racial spectrum is, frankly, appalling.
While we applaud programs such as Pluralism in Action, social awareness needs to be a year-round effort, not just a two-hour session at the beginning of the college experience. At the very least, a diversity requirement needs to be implemented in the undergraduate curriculum to provide an all-encompassing net to ensure that every Georgetown student is guaranteed the opportunity to connect with an experience that previously may have run invisibly parallel to their own.
We are owed a dialogue about race and class in a more formalized setting than anonymous Facebook posts. Georgetown students come from a rich variety of backgrounds, and to neglect this aspect of our education is to cheat us in truly achieving the goal of cura personalis.
