College President Denounces Black Student’s Non-White Roommate Request
12th August 2016
The Claremont Independent reports Pitzer College student Kare Urena asked in the post that only people of color apply to live in her off-campus residence, adding that she didn’t “want to live with any white folks.”
A lot of that going around these days. Since the residence was off-campus, surely she has the right to live with people with whom she feels comfortable?
Pitzer President Melvin Oliver, who earlier this year became the first African American to lead a Claremont undergrad campus, calls the post “inconsistent with our mission and values.” He says the college wants to engage “complex intercultural issues, not to isolate individuals on the basis of any protected status.”
Look at his picture and find the ‘African-American’ — his skin is no darker than that of my family. But I suppose that these days ‘identifying as black’ is sufficient for affirmative-action purposes.
The Washington Post reports a roommate was found and the post has been removed, but Urena and another roommate are defending it. They say living with people of color “can be necessary.”
Of course, if a white student had requested a white roommate, he would have been lynched in the public square, and the Washington Post would have howled at the front of the mob.