Groan-inducing.
Via Harvard Crimson:
Students at the Kennedy School of Government gathered in the school’s courtyard on Friday for a “moment of solidarity” in support of a movement lobbying the school’s administration to create a mandatory orientation program to help incoming students and faculty better recognize and address race and gender in the classroom.
The movement, called HKS Speaks Out, began in October after students expressed having “really negative classroom experiences,” according to Reetu D. Mody, a first year Master in Public Policy student and an organizer of the movement. She said the group has amassed about 300 student signatures, or about a fourth of the school’s student population, on a petition that calls for mandatory privilege and power training.
At Friday’s event, about 80 students participated in an exercise to visualize the differences in privilege created by race and gender. The students began in a single line, but as students were asked to step forward or backward based on questions about the social repercussions of their socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and sexual identities, the line became disjointed.
Mody said that she felt the event brought the students together to share their varying backgrounds and, in doing so, demonstrated the need for greater training on the issue.
In response to the movement, the school’s diversity committee met with the group’s organizers to hear their concerns, Kennedy School spokesman Doug Gavel wrote in an email, adding that these discussions “have been extremely productive and constructive.”
Additionally, Melodie Jackson, senior associate dean for degree programs and student affairs, “has committed to integrating diversity training into student orientation and the school is currently exploring a variety of different training options,” Gavel wrote.