I wonder what is in the brains of these kids, to go on-air with this crap. Did they really not think they would be called out and punished?
I hope their names are made public, as they publicized their own racism.
“A private Pennsylvania college expelled three students who made racist comments and used a slur during a late-night campus radio broadcast.
Bucknell University president John Bravman said in a email that he would share the comments made by the students, a DJ and two guests, in the ‘interest of transparency and candor’.
Bravman said one of the students used the N-word during the March 20 WVBU-FM broadcast. Another student said ‘black people should be dead’ and a third said 'lynch ‘em’.”
What does this say about Bucknell that the incident was reported by a prisoner at a near by jail. No one at the radio station and no student listening to the broadcast thought these comments were offensive enough to report to someone?
When I was in college I think I had a radio show that absolutely no one listened to, Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m.
Bucknell needs to increase the number of African-American students on campus. Three percent means that it is possible for a white student to attend 4 years without ever having any meaningful interaction with a black student. College should be a time to open one’s mind, not keep it closed.
midwestdad3 , I agree that school is time to open your mind but the school should be educating people to gear them towards a job, that is the goal. bucknell should discourage frats and decrease sports to make it a better place. most smart geeks go off to college from their home towns looking to be free of the BRO culture… a school like bucknell is full of jocks and frats. that is a turn off to a lot of people they should want(color aside) just my opinion.
Philip Roth’s alma mater. It was exotic at the time, 1950s, for a Jewish kid from inner-city Newark to attend such a place. He captures his experience in INDIGNATION, with the name changed to Winesburg College (a nod to Sherewood Anderson).
I’m shocked that in the connected world we live in, and with the recent OKU frat incident, that someone would out themselves like that on the air. In addition to racism, they could have been expelled for basic stupidity.
(Off topic: Why am I seeing a banner ad on this page for Sweet Briar? “Find your place,” it says. That’s cruel.)
In answer to the diversity on campus comments - my son attends Bucknell and every year at Parents Weekend, John Bravman has a discussion session with parents. He is quite aware that Bucknell needs to increase the diversity of the students on campus and they are working actively to do so, such as participating in the Posse program in three different cities. However, he stated that it is quite difficult to attract minority students to come out to a school in the middle of nowhere. Obviously more needs to be done to change the culture of the school, and obviously the school knows this. They are taking steps - such as cancelling House Party weekend.
Sickening. Not sure what oversight there was here but in HIGH SCHOOL, our boarding school child held a financial aid job that involved monitoring all student radio programs for FCC compliance and toxic slurs of this kind. I would think colleges would have the same but someone was clearly asleep at the (wheel).
Even without fools on radio, Bucknell’s characteristics (e.g. majority fraternity/sorority* participation and probable high alcohol consumption**) and location (small, probably conservative, 88% white town) might not be all that attractive to black or other non-white students.
*Most at Bucknell are historically and predominantly white, although there is one historically black fraternity and one historically multicultural sorority.
**Note that non-white (particularly black and Asian) people in the US tend to have lower alcohol consumption than white people.
There might also be remnants of Bucknell’s past reputation for attracting a right-leaning student body as back when I was in HS around 2 decades ago, Bucknell was very popular among HS classmates who were vocally right-leaning libertarians and White.
This very same factor was one major reason along with location why most non-White classmates…especially URMs along with those with more center-left/left-leaning politics avoided applying there.
I would be very interested in knowing from objective folks in the know whether Bucknell has changed much (aside from this incident) and what the current climate is for URMs, LGBT, etc. I recall the old frat stereotypes of the 80s as well but thought/hoped things had changed and/or were moving more in the direction of other selective LA schools, like, say Bates, Colby, Hamilton, Colgate, etc.
I am an 89 grad and one of my roommates has two children who are currently students at Bucknell. Bucknell was comparatively very conservative when I was there and the frat culture was huge. It was not a terribly accepting place for gay and lesbian students, but I am not sure how many campuses really were at that time. My understanding is that the school has moved to the left since that time, but maybe not as much as other schools have during the same period, so it is still a relatively conservative place. I am not sure that is in and of itself a problem. There are a lot of kids who do not enter college relishing the 24/7 far left politics on many campuses. The frat culture is supposedly much less pervasive than back in my day, wich is probably a good thing. I was a football player, so probably my experience was less “monochromatic” than many of my classmates’. When I was on campus last spring with my son it still seemed a very white place. It is a very rural campus, and really only appeals to a certain type of kid very few of whom are likely URMs. All that said, and recognizing I am a straight white male, I recieved an excellent education at Bucknell, and once you get used to the “bubble” it was truly a great place to spend four years.
This sounds to me like a situation where the “diverse” students would need combat pay to attend. Who needs that if you are a kid? How about they accept that their draw is more upper class and more white and more Greek but just decide that the dominant demographic doesn’t have to mean that it’s a haven of asshatery. Diversity is great but I think it’s possible to be who they are and still not be a bunch of insensitive clods. One should be able to be a white frat boy and not be a fill in the blank at the same time.
I don’t know that it is fair to say that three kids on an overnight radio show out of 3,500 undergrads means the campus is a haven for ass hatery, any more than Al Sharpton’s dumber comments mean that all urban black people hate Jews or Koreans.
Very true - my point is that I feel that it is possible to be mostly white and mostly Greek and isolated and not just be obnoxious by default. Even if a push for visible diversity isn’t successful that doesn’t mean that it can’t be or isn’t a fine place.
My D is a first year student at Bucknell and both she and we (her parents) wish the student body were more diverse. Although she is a white, suburban, public school kid, she was accustomed to a much more diverse environment in HS. Bucknell is certainly more homogenous racially and socioeconomically than she is used to. That being said, she is having a fantastic experience academically, artistically (she is involved in the arts on campus) and socially at Bucknell. She did call us the other day quite upset (her voice audibly shaking) to discuss this incident and her disappointment and shame about the fact that members of her campus community would make such statements and that no one from the Bucknell community itself who may have heard the broadcast reported it (although to be fair, it was a late night show on a Fri night and so probably had a fairly small audience). She did say that in one of her classes (an arts class with a racially diverse group of students), they spent the entire class period discussing the incident in a very open and frank way and she said it was a very revealing and moving conversation. Although she was aware of the need to increase diversity on campus, she is now also painfully aware of the need to ensure that minorities who are on campus feel “safe” (and she didn’t necessarily mean physically). Although she is not generally an activist for political causes, she has been inspired to think about ways that she can get more involved in supporting diversity on campus. She said overall that students are appalled by the content of the broadcast (as they should be) and she is hoping that the issue won’t die down and that there will be more awareness and attention paid to diversity moving forward.
I do think it is fair to caution against stereotyping all the “rich, white” students who admittedly make up a large portion of the student population as “a**hats” or “racists” for that matter. Painting the student body with that broad brush is neither accurate nor fair nor will it assist the University in attracting a more diverse student body moving forward.
I wish I could edit that back as I feel like my intent was misunderstood. What I was trying to say is exactly that. The fact that it is less diverse does not by nature make it a place where one should expect that kind of vibe and trying to attract more AA students doesn’t seem to me like the best answer in this case.
@saintfan. I’m curious, why do you think the University should not try to attract more AA (or other minorities, racially or socioeconomically or otherwise). Seems to me, that that is the minimum that the University should be trying to do?