BGLSA Co-Chair Sandi DuBowski '92 agrees. "I think a lot of communities at Harvard look inward and don't seek to link up with other communities," he says.
During the controversy that developed last year after a student hung a Confederate flag from her window in Kirkland House, "people were marching here and there and never had a discussion," Ali says of the event, which prompted a coordinated Hillel/BSA response.
Natosha O. Reid '93, who is also Black, agrees with Ali that in many cases, the groups shout past each other. "I don't see a true interaction or alliance of different racial groups on campus," Reid says.
Even groups that are designed to foster interaction sometimes seem to act in ways that prevent it. When the Harvard Foundation held a recent panel discussion on "The Challenges to Race Relations at the Ivy League and Public Universities," on a Friday night, Jews who attend Friday night Sabbath services were effectively barred from the event.
Moreover, says Fields, when groups do get together, they are often dismissed as "just another minority group having just another beef."
One issue that has served to unify the minority groups is that of faculty diversity. The Minority Student Alliance (MSA), a student coalition of representatives from campus minority groups, has been fighting for five years to bring more minority faculty to Harvard.
But the Alliance has been more successful in gaining the allegiance of its representatives than it has been in gaining the support of the entire community. In addition, gays and Jews are not officially represented in the Alliance, which says it is open to any group that sends a representative.
Clearly, Harvard lacks what Dartmouth Senior Associate Dean of Students Ngina Lythcott calls a "cross-cultural coalition" of feminists, Jews, gays and students of color--a coalition that makes for "a sophisticated level of student politics," she says of the campus that, of course, is also home to the Dartmouth Review.
The MSA is still struggling to define its role, attract more student participation and develop an agenda that goes beyond advocating more minority and women faculty. This October, for example, the group held a meeting entitled "Can There Be a Minority Students Alliance?"
But that question is only one among the many that minority students organizations are currently grappling with. While recognizing that they play an important part in creating a niche for many minority students, the organizations must also deal with those students who do not feel comfortable joining organizations based only on race or ethnicity.
Minority organizations, play a unique role among campus extracurricular groups, providing an opportunity for students to make sense of their own identities while celebrating the diversity of the community.
But to succeed, many say, such groups must turn their attention both inward and outward. Of course, they must create an atmosphere where all members of a particular group feel comfortable. But perhaps the greater task is ensuring that such groups do not exist in a vaccum, that each individual group plays a constructive role within Harvard's community of difference.
COMING TOMORROW IN THE CRIMSON'S FOUR-PART FEATURE SERIES ON DIVERSITY AT HARVARD:
* WHAT THE UNIVERSITY AS AN INSTITUTION CAN DO TO IMPROVE MINORITY RELATIONS AT HARVARD.
DEALING WITH DIFFERENCE