Sinking overseas

IU is constantly striving toward increasing diversity on campus. But when its minority population is hit hard by the U.S. government, diverting its desires from making the trip here to Bloomington, will anything be done about it?\nNewly proposed regulations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have scheduled a new $100 fee to burden our international students. The fee is intended to cover the costs of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the database used by the Department to track the international students while they're on U.S. soil.\n Let's put this in perspective. For our visitors from India, $100 is roughly the equivalent of 4,500 rupees. This isn't some freshman fee to aid in their education. This is money, coming out of their pockets, used to help the Department make their educational experience in the U.S. as uncomfortable as possible.\n If you thought IU had enough red tape to go through when it came to schedule adjustments, imagine being a visitor from abroad. That $100 will help the program that requires these students to constantly report into the Big Brother for every time they travel, drop a class, change their address, graduate early or begin their new semester's workload. \nFailure to do so can result in a revocation of their visas.\nThis is all rationalized under the heavy hand of Homeland Security. The intimidation is funded and put into place to monitor international students, a demographic that comprises only 2 percent of all people visiting the U.S. from an outside nation!\nIU strongly urges studying abroad for American undergrads. The Office of Overseas Study's mission statement strongly declares, "As the most effective and dramatic experience by which students can achieve international and intercultural learning, study abroad will contribute significantly to careers in all fields of specialization and should be an integral part of undergraduate education at Indiana University."\nWhile we struggle to maintain diversity on campus, while we offer up our speeches and yearly reports on how we're "advancing" the cause, here we are granted with an opportunity to act. \nAside from the diversity debacle, IU-Bloomington Chancellor Sharon Brehm made a valid point in speaking with the IDS in March ("BFC reports problems with SEVIS," March 13). She noted international academic figures on campus make significant contributions to science, engineering and mathematics. With this added deterrent to study in the U.S. -- particularly in times of heightened terrorist awareness -- she said it is a "threat to national security because it will seriously hurt our sciences, which is an effective tool in security."\nThe SEVIS program is certain to detract students from seeking educational opportunities in the U.S. IU can, at the very least, offer some sort of aid by paying portions of the SEVIS fee. \nCommitted to diversity? Here's a chance to prove it.