Feb. 24 Jordan River Forum: Guest column by Justin Kingsolver

Justin D. Kingsolver
is a candidate for president on the Kirkwood for IUSA ticket.

No campus tour of IU is complete without the tour guide quoting the old adage that “IU is a diverse university.” As someone immersed in the culture and experiences this Hoosier environment offers, I could not agree more.

However, in my time at this university, I have discovered that the concept of diversity is far more complex than what I once recognized it to be. Like too many of my peers from suburban Fishers, Ind., I understood “diversity” to mean simply the combination of people of differing races and ethnicities. In my time in Bloomington, though, that outmoded definition has been shattered.

Diversity is — or at least should be — determined by more than skin color. Backgrounds and experiences, rather than shades of skin, determine who a person is and his or her ability to make a positive contribution to society. Our University is not diverse because we have significant black, Asian-American or Latino populations; we are diverse because we welcome students of all genders, religious preferences, political views, sexual orientations, national origins and areas of academic interest.

This “diversity” dialogue has already begun to permeate the 2010 IU Student Association election campaign. Our Kirkwood ticket has been charged with “not being diverse enough,” but I challenge this claim at its premise. Kirkwood represents a new kind of diversity, and our critics subscribe to the archaic view that diversity is only skin-deep.
Although Kirkwood’s executive and congressional slates of candidates include students of all racial backgrounds, it is not this fact alone that makes us diverse. We represent a true cross-section of the IU community. Working with the campaign are greeks and non-greeks; people who live in the residence halls and those living off-campus; Democrats, Republicans and Independents; freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and graduate students; Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus and atheists; and in-state, out-of-state and international students.

This diversity of experience is what truly sets the Kirkwood ticket apart from its competitors — and this diversity will be embraced in a Kirkwood IUSA administration if the student body gives us that chance on March 9 and 10.

Noted humanist Margaret Mead once suggested that “if we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

The Kirkwood ticket embraces this viewpoint — a philosophy that stresses human gifts rather than ethnicity as the ultimate arbiter of diversity.

The Kirkwood ticket is redefining diversity.

Won’t you join us?