Education: The Great Equalizer

With the resurgence of the racial justice movement over the past few months, students of color, and primarily Black students, have been using social media to highlight how their identities shape their college experiences. Pages like @blackatcornell and @blackivystories show how Black students have been denied entrance at parties, been unfairly discriminated against during the club recruitment process, been stopped for identification to prove they are students, and more. One post even details how a student left their laptop briefly unattended on a lounge table and returned to images of slaves, people in blackface, and KKK members on their computer screen.[1]

These types of blatant discrimination extend to other marginalized students as well. One social media post that stood out to me told the story of a professor who denied help to a first-generation student. The professor’s rationale was that the student did not attend office hours, which somehow meant they did not care about the class and did not deserve academic support. When the student tried to explain that they work multiple on-campus jobs to afford tuition, and that their work hours often conflict with office hours, the professor merely suggested that they should focus on being a full-time student rather than trying to work. Of course, this demeanor disregards the fact that not everyone can afford to focus solely on academics, and many students have financial responsibilities that their more privileged peers do not. 

And the discrimination inherent in the club recruitment process at Cornell is something I could probably write entire essays about. If you're not from a privileged background, you get to this school and think, ‘okay, I've made it’. At least I did. But staying 'competitive' while you're here feels 10 times harder than even getting in, because you're competing against people who went to private schools and had SAT tutors and have no need to work on-campus jobs. Club experience is often a way to set yourself apart on internship applications, and in turn, those internships set you apart when you're looking for full-time jobs. But the club recruitment process is far from ideal. The competition of 3+ rounds of interviews was not something I was expecting as a transfer student, and something my friends at other schools were shocked to hear about—and rightfully so. Scrutinization by people who are meant to be your peers, watching classmates spend hours deliberating if you deserve a place in their organization, and succumbing to the evaluation of 'social fit' as a way to keep white and wealthy clubs from accepting differing viewpoints and experiences are all problematic to say the least. Returning to the experience of being a first-generation student, I've been notified of interviews with less than 24 hours of warning, which, as you can imagine, is not enough time for me to take off work the next morning. 

Even beyond overt discrimination, microaggressions are all too common. I had a professor last semester who refused to say my name during attendance, because even after correcting him several times, he decided it was too difficult to try to pronounce. Most of my friends on campus have similar experiences, and I can't help but think that for a school that prides itself on being "the most egalitarian Ivy," Cornell still has a long way to go. Education has to be equitable if it is to be the great equalizer. Recruitment processes need to account for the fact that not everyone was able to start their own business in high school. Professors need to be mindful of students' different responsibilities beyond schoolwork. Campus policing needs to be significantly reformed (at minimum) to better protect Black students. These items are by no means a conclusive list of all the changes that need to be made, but for education to be truly transformative and equitable, all of our identities and experiences need to be respected and supported. Until then, education is not serving its purpose.