UW Madison’s Multicultural Center — a space designed to “ensure students of all racial and cultural backgrounds” feel welcomed at the university — held a special meeting on Monday to help students process the past week’s of racially-tinged events, which included the targeted killing of five police officers in Dallas and the fatal police shootings of two black men in St Paul, Minnesota and Baton Rouge, La.
But for all the talk of inclusivity, the support meet-ups were — disconcertingly — split up by racial groups.
In a post that has since been deleted off of the official UW-M Facebook page, the Center described the meetings as a space where all students and teachers could gather to discuss and reflect on recent events. “All are welcome and there will be affinity spaces for people of color and for white people,” the announcement said.
According to the post, the center offered two separate “processing” sessions — one for white UW employees in the morning followed by another one for white students in the afternoon, and another two for minority students, faculty, and staff.
Following accusations of racial segregation by several media outlets, which noted the irony in separating folks by the color of their skin to discuss matters of race, UW-Madison spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said the decision to hold separate meetings was never made to give an “impression of exclusion,” but to ensure minority students had an outlet where they could express their feelings without the fear of being judged.
“No one was turned away from any session,” McGlone said. “There was no requirement for students to meet with their identified race.”
McGlone nonetheless acknowledged that the goal of holding separate meetings could have been communicated more clearly to avoid confusion.
“Our students of color often find such spaces hard to come by,” she said, but “these forums are broadly inclusive and give members of our community the chance to discuss issues and concerns.”
She did not specify whether future meetings about race and diversity would follow a similar format.
