Clearing the Coalition's Mission

by Darrow Merton

Tuesday February 7, 2006

While the vast majority of SLC students are aware of the existence of the Ethnic Studies Coalition, many are unclear as to the exact nature of the Coalition and its goals.

"I’m sympathetic to the Ethnic Studies campaign because I don’t want to sound like a bigot, but I’m not exactly sure what they’re trying to accomplish, and I wish they would clarify themselves," said First-year Brendan Haggerty, mirroring the concerns of many students.

Sophomore Shamara Wyllie, a member of the Coalition and Chair of Student Senate, described the nature of the group: "The Ethnic Studies coalition is not a school club or organization, it’s a campaign serving the interests of people who may feel excluded from Sarah Lawrence."

When asked about the goals of the group, Wyllie said, "We all have the same ideology—that of making people from all types of backgrounds feel included at Sarah Lawrence. With that said, there are different philosophies within the campaign as to how best to accomplish this."

Some students leveled criticism at the campaign alleging that the ethnic studies campaign will separate black literature from white literature.

Wyllie responded, "While most classes are Eurocentric, we are not proposing totally segregated classes. Ethnic studies classes would also be categorized under geography, history, or whatever field they were previously."

When asked about the relationship between the Ethnic Studies campaign and the school administration, Wyllie commented, "Michelle [Myers] has been the most cooperative of the administrators. She sat down with us to form a statement that all sides could agree upon, and she agreed to form a committee on ethnic studies that will consist of three coalition members and two other students."

In regard to Student Senate’s involvement with the Ethnic Studies campaign—at the first Senate discussion of the campaign this year, members of the Ethnic Studies campaign denounced the Student Senate as "institutionally racist" – Wyllie stated that when meeting with the Ethnic Studies coalition, the Student Senate has not made any affirmations of support for or against the coalition, while "in the past, the Senate did sign various resolutions to support student campaigns."

First-year class President Neil Makhija described the relationship between Senate and the Campaign as "Initially there were a lot of false impressions, but lately we’ve had some respectable attempts at real communication." Makhija went on to say, "Some senators were accused of making ignorant remarks, although I can say that I did not interpret those statements the way the Coalition did."