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| Trinity University Dean of Students David Tuttle (far left) meeting with students from the Black Student Union on April 22 Photo by Nipuni Gomes |
By Nipuni Gomes
In early April, Tigers for Liberty, a student organization for conservative, libertarian-minded individuals, invited British journalist, entrepreneur, and controversial fringe internet icon Milo Yiannopoulos to speak about microaggressions in Laurie Auditorium.
In his lecture, Yiannopoulos articulated a number of slurs against people of color and feminists, and argued that microaggressions do not, in fact, exist. The lecture was attended by members of both the Trinity community and the wider San Antonio area. Many attendees cheered and laughed during the talk, and named it an exercise of free speech.
“Milo sort of acted like an unnecessary battering ram in that everyone knows who the club is now, so in terms of getting name recognition up, he was excellent. In terms of his lecture, I wasn’t a fan of his lecture,” said Manfred Wendt, a first year student and President of Tigers for Liberty.
Meanwhile, Wendt expressed his disagreement with the notion of microaggressions: “I would say that I don’t really agree with the idea of microaggressions, because the idea that someone can be offended by the way you set down a bottle of water is malarkey.”
Manfred and his twin brother Jonah, who is the vice president of the same organization, said they did not, in fact, receive much backlash regarding the Yiannopoulos lecture. Instead, they received some positive comments. They do not believe that racism exists on the Trinity campus.
“If you’re looking for racism at Trinity, you’re going to have to look really, really hard, maybe just at a Snapchat story,” the Wendts said.
“The idea that someone is different based on the color of their skin is not one that most Trinity students subscribe to,” Jonah said. “It’s just something that, when you get to this level intellectually, we look at the quality of each other’s character and the content of our hearts rather than the color of our skin.”
The Wendts maintained that the reason for bringing Yiannopoulos to campus was cost.
“We brought him because he was free. That was the only reason that he was brought here. We paid for security,” the Wendts said.
Trinity University Dean of Students David Tuttle stressed that Trinity University had not sponsored the Yiannopoulos speech. However, he believes that there is something that can be learned from events like these.
“If we protect students from this kind of speech and shield them from it, then they go out into the world ill-equipped to face people like that. Ideally, students push back. We as an institution want to try to coach students to stand up for what’s right,” Tuttle said.
John Jacobs, Assistant Director of Student Involvement and Faculty Advisor of Black Student Union and Black Male Leadership Initiative, agrees with this sentiment.
“There’s a lot of confusion, struggles, and troubles that you’ll go through in the world. People are not going to look like you, not going to think the way you think,” said Jacobs. “So, when you have a group like Tigers for Liberty, and other groups that may surface in the upcoming years, our job is not to silence them. Our job is to give them a counter-argument, to speak up and say that our values and opinions matter as much as theirs.”
Following the Yiannopoulos lecture, the Trinity Diversity Connection, the Black Student Union, Black Male Leadership Initiative, and the Trinity Progressives hosted a panel titled “Diversity Post-Milo: Looking Back to Move Forward.”
These student organizations are currently working together to create a report that will sum up all diversity-related events and their related costs, attendance rates, student testimonials, and Trinitonian coverage of these events, as a way to track the status of campus diversity.
At the same time, Tuttle arranged a series of dinner meetings at his campus residence with representatives of several student groups on campus, including the Latino Student Association, the Black Student Union, Chinese Culture Club, Filipino Student Association, Japanese Culture Club, Indian Student Association, and the Vietnamese Student Association.
“It’s really important to be tuned in to the racial and cultural climate on the campus, and to do those things in what I call, ‘peace time,’ and not when there’s an issue,” said Tuttle. “It’s important to get a sense of what it’s like to walk in the shoes of some of our students that are from either underrepresented groups or cultural groups or different racial groups.”
In these meetings, students shared experiences of racial discrimination, prejudice, and micro- and macro-aggressions on campus. Furthermore, they discussed positive aspects of the diversity dialogue on campus and planned further actions to improve awareness on campus.
Trevor Lewis, a senior and member of the Black Student Union, named this year the best of his four years at Trinity in terms of diversity efforts. “We’re definitely not anywhere near a permanent solution, but you can see a lot of discussion among the students, and I’d say I’m proud of that,” he said.
Still, for many students, the fine line between free speech and political correctness is not easy to manage.
“Now that we are aware that there are people on campus that think this way, and they’re compelled to voice these opinions, but call it ‘free speech,’ it is important to know how to respond to that,” said Tahlar Rowe, a sophomore and President of the Black Student Union.
“I have specifically heard the n-word used a lot by certain students, and for us it’s just about how we respond without getting easily offended, defensive, or upset, but by making constructive arguments and [letting people know] that we don’t feel comfortable with this,” she added.
Senior Robyn Wheelock said that, although people who do not care about these issues have the right not to care, others also have the right to speak up.
“The reason that we care about microaggressions or hate speech is because it has real-world effects,” Wheelock said. “It’s not just about hurting people’s feelings, it’s about behaving and speaking in a way that reiterates oppression that justifies the murder of people of color, the abuse of women, the assault of genderqueer and LGBT people.”
The common denominator among all parties in this discussion is that microaggressions and free speech, regardless of which side one is on, are important. These issues affect the learning and living environments of college campuses and all individuals, whether they belong to minorities or not, and the discussion is far from being over.
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