Two faculty and staff members at OCU have accused officials and administrative superiors of discrimination.
OCU cites diversity and inclusion as two of its core values. A 2019 student survey determined that these values are some of the most valuable to attending students.
Students have become more involved than ever in important decisions regarding diversity in administrative tasks, like choosing a new police chief and selecting a vice president of diversity and inclusion.
Still, faculty and staff are alleging facing discrimination based on their race, gender and age.
Discrimination has become a systemic issue. Often, when organizations and systems are faced with accusations of discrimination, they weed out the most immediate cause of this discrimination, claiming the issue to be the work of a small group of radical perpetrators, a ‘few bad apples.’
Any form of oppression has roots in historical and systemic hierarchies that support the maintenance of a status quo. This status quo marginalizes groups based on characteristics such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
This issues mean that working toward genuine diversity and inclusion is far more difficult, as eliminating prejudice is not as simple as removing those who participate in active, hostile discrimination with verbal or physical weapons.
The campus community is striving to improve itself. In order to do so, it needs to examine the possible flaws within its workings. Diversity initiatives are not effective if Human Resources does not recognize alleged discrimination when it happens and act to prevent it. Diversity initiatives are ineffective when there is an insufficient system to file an allegation of discrimination and know that it will be handled seriously, efficiently and appropriately.
Change is difficult, and often, change is slow. The constant obstacle to progress is process, the structure of power ensuring that change happens at an approved pace.
Administrators and authority figures with power to change the system need to reexamine the current processes for handling accusations of discrimination and their effectiveness. They need to refuse to accept ‘eventually’ as an answer for issues students and faculty say they face presently.
Unless the administrators are willing to truly change the system at OCU, incidents like these will still be possible.
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