Race relations and integration at UVA

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Virginia
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<p>NOTE: I really want to keep this a civil discussion-- I am particularly interested in hearing from students at the school about their experiences. </p>

<p>My son recently spent five days at UVA for the Jefferson Scholar weekend. He was not selected to win the scholarship, but has been admitted to UVA. His experience there was 99% positive-- the students he interacted with were friendly, the staff was accessible, the campus was lovely. The school is well regarded, has a very generous AP/IB credit policy and would be, in most ways, a great fit for him.</p>

<p>But, there was one thing which bothered him greatly: He observed a near total social segregation between black and white students. He is white. I don't think he went looking for this, but was repeatedly struck by it.. I would like to be able to tell him that what he observed isn't typical of the school as a whole, but only, of course, if this is true!</p>

<p>I am looking for information about academic and social interactions between black, hispanic and white students. Is it comfortable? Are frats racially mixed? Is interacial dating common?<br>
I have read the commentary on cc about uva students "just being more comfortable hanging with students like them", but it seems odd to me that there are still places where similarity is judged more by race than similar interests.</p>

<p>Tell me about your UVA experience of race interaction.</p>

2

<p>inter racial relations are fine in my opinion. Frats are predominately caucasian as you would expect, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have minorities in them. </p>

<p>People of different races get along just fine, but self segregation is something you will see anywhere and everywhere. What brings people together are common attributes. Race and culture are just two of the more dominant ones.</p>

3

<p>Although that is certainly true, my son hasn’t observed it at any other school he has visited (WashU, Georgetown, UNC, American, UofL, Princeton) nor has he observed this at his own urban high school.</p>

4

<p>No offense, but I’m not exactly sure what you’re aiming to get at from here. Most of us current students on here don’t see the segregation you speak of. We know of people who tend to stick with their own race, but it’s simply because they might have grown up that way and by their comfortable nature, their friends tend to be along their same race lines (white, asian, black, etc). But for the most part, people have friends of all backgrounds, OOS/IS, majors, etc. I don’t think anyone purposely goes out of their way to make friends only of their race/background. There definitely aren’t any “hate crimes” or outright discrimination here, AT ALL. Everyone is warm and friendly to all kinds of people.
If your son wants to make friends outside of his own boundaries, great. If not, great too. I’m not really sure what he’s looking for, since it’s up to him when it comes to what kind of friends he makes and people he interacts with. This worry is naive, and shouldn’t play into what college he picks. This kind of issue exists everywhere.</p>

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<p>I completely agree with shoebox10. I’m latino and most of my friends were latino as well, not because we purposely chose to segregate ourselves but since we were in the same clubs, a lot of us are were from the same country, we knew the same people, spoke the same language and took the same classes, it was easy to relate to those people. Now, most people at UVA are open about making friends from any race or background, sometimes, however, the opportunity might not lend itself, like me being friends with an African American Athlete who’s in the e-school…we don’t have anything in common and therefore it would be hard for two such different people to cross paths and thus become friends.</p>

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<p>this is going to sound absolutely horrible and i debated not mentioning it, but i think UVA is trying to equalize something with regard to race.
i did not see anyone’s application so i do not have full information, but at my high school four people were accepted to UVa, three were african american and then there was me. and im legacy
there were also several waitlisted/rejected (none that I know that were URMs) and i know one waitlistee and one rejected student had higher gpas and in some instances, high sat scores and definitely tougher class schedules than the african american students who were accepted.
this is relevant because stuff like this might contribute to segregation… or this admission trend could be new to try and combat segregation. or it could be completely incidental.
i dont want to offend anybody this is just something that happened at my, out-of-state high school</p>

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<p>If your son didn’t see self-segregation at UNC, he must use a white cane.</p>

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<p>mechWahoo-- It could well be that had he only spent one day at UVA, he wouldn’t have noticed it there either. We were only at UNC for a single day, and the only real student interaction we had was with this hilarious group of girls who were setting up some sort of activist campaign thing on one of the squares-- They were funny, charming, very leftie sorts. Several were clearly mixed race or foriegn born. They also may well have been just a tiny group in the school that we happenned to run into.</p>

<p>As to what I am looking for – I thought I was clear: I am hoping for reassuring information about how so and so club is populated with a wide range of people all interested in X or Y or Whatever.<br>
What I am not finding that reassuring is the responses that imply that self segregating by race is the natural default.-- My observation at my son’s high school is that segregation occurs via interest and talents–That is jocks tend to hang out together, IB students tend to hang out together, the theatre crowd hangs out together, etc.</p>

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<p>Social division based on race, and more so, based on generic background “where you came from” were the first things I noticed when I came here after high school (fairfax county) in the fall of '05. Sure in HS groups were divided up (usually by activity) but sometimes by race depending on how the make up of you school looked, but at UVa, there was a clearly visible division, one that I have found to get better in just my four years here. </p>

<p>Without going on some big rant, it’s all about what you get involved in if you’re looking to interact with people from different racial or ethnic backgrounds. I’m an upper middle class white guy whose best friend in HS was black, and my best friend through most of my time here also happens to be black. Of course it goes beyond one or two friends though, but that’s because of what I’ve been involved in (specifically, Marching Band and Residence Staff). There are plenty of orgs around where you’ll find people of varied backgrounds coming together and you’ll find plenty of orgs that are pretty monochromatic, but I think that’s ok. </p>

<p>-Frats are as homogeneous as it gets.
-Clubs based on racial/ethnic/religious backgrounds are almost equally homogenous - but much more accepting and open to people not like themselves than frats.
-Big groups like StudCo, Honor, UJC, Residence Staff, Madison House tend to have a “pretty” good mix some better than others.
-Anything ‘arts’ is much more diverse, but that’s how it always goes
-some other groups like UDems, or Sustained Dialogue are very reflective of varied backgrounds and interests.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the thougtful reply–to clarify, are you saying that you have noticed a lessening of (self)racial segregation in your time at UVA?</p>

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<p>also I want to address shoebox’s not uncharacteristically abrasive and sarcastic post. </p>

<p>people here are very well aware of the divisions in social groups. these divisions don’t permeate the entire student community, probably not even half, but they are visible and we know it. </p>

<p>in regards to hate crimes and all that, the SINGLE MOST frustrating thing about this school is the offensive, distasteful, bigotry that exists. Not a year has gone by since I’ve been here where we haven’t had a serious hate/bias incident.</p>

<p>Fall of '05 - Racial slurs and abusive language targeting black students written on Lawn room doors. </p>

<p>and more recently, and first year male getting assaulted by five men because of his sexuality(not confirmed who, but I definitely believe they were students) resulting in a concussion, being left unconscious and a stay in the hospital. </p>

<p>It tears me deeply that these things happen here and certainly has been an educating experience that our world is not anywhere close to where I thought it was. </p>

<p>Message from Dean Groves regarding the incident last week:</p>

<p>Members of the University of Virginia community:</p>

<p>Early Saturday morning, April 4, at approximately 3 a.m. in the Stadium Road area, a U.Va. student and his guest were violently assaulted, without warning, by five males described by the victim as Caucasians between the ages of 16 and 20. The attackers uttered several homophobic slurs immediately prior to and during the attack. The attackers smashed the victim’s cell phone when he tried to call 911 for help. University Police units responded when the student’s guest was able to flee and call for help. Because the attack was initially thought to have occurred off Grounds, the Charlottesville Police took on responsibility for investigating it and have been in regular communication with UPD Chief Mike Gibson since. Today, when the student visited the crime scene with CPD investigators, it was discovered that the crime appears to have taken place on Grounds and UPD has now taken over the investigation.</p>

<p>Based upon the facts as we currently know them, we believe this to be a bias-motivated crime, in that the perceived sexual orientation of the two victims appears to have motivated the assault. The U.Va. victim’s Resident Advisor provided immediate support, and I informed the Resident Advisor on Saturday that I was available to meet with the student at the first opportunity, providing my cell phone number and offering to come to his residence hall Saturday afternoon. The Dean-on-Call also offered immediate assistance. When I ultimately did meet with the student, I offered the full support of the Office of the Dean of Students and the Division of Student Affairs. I also understand that his friends in the University community have provided important support throughout. Please know that we have been very careful throughout this process to protect the victims’ identities and privacy.</p>

<p>Any crime perpetrated on a University student is one too many. However, a crime such as this, motivated as it appears by the victims’ perceived sexual orientation, or one motivated by a victim’s race, color, age, national origin, gender, disability, religion, ethnicity, or other protected characteristic, is particularly repugnant and deserving of swift condemnation. There is no place for crimes of hate at the University or in the surrounding Charlottesville community. Please know that we will do all that we can to apprehend and punish those responsible. I also encourage students to utilize our Just-Report-It system (accessible on the Dean of Students Web page, [Dean</a> of Students](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/deanofstudents]Dean”>http://www.virginia.edu/deanofstudents)) to alert us to any bias-motivated incidents that may occur.</p>

<p>On Thursday evening, several student organizations will be holding a forum and a demonstration of community support in the McIntire Amphitheater at approximately 6:30 p.m. to review this incident. Thereafter, at 8 p.m., a discussion session will take place in the Kaleidoscope room in Newcomb Hall. All interested members of the community are invited to attend. I will be available to speak with you at both events. You may also e-mail me at <a href=“mailto:allengroves@virginia.edu”>allengroves@virginia.edu</a>.</p>

<p>Allen W. Groves
Dean of Students</p>

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<p>I would say self segregation is less of an issue/has lessened in my time here, yes.</p>

<p>In the past several years it has certainly been a topic that students discuss, that faculty discusses, and I think it will continue to be a a topic of conversation for years to come. </p>

<p>When it really comes down to it though, you will hang out with and interact with people based on activities/involvements, social network, and classes. It certainly is NOT the case that black students don’t want to interact with white students, or that SE Asian students won’t talk to Hispanic students, etc. etc. It’s all about the setting.</p>

<p>So, I think if you son enjoys interacting with peers from varied backgrounds (as I do), he will have lots of opportunity to do so, just needs to keep an eye and ear open.</p>

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<p>

??? I found nothing sarcastic in my post, and none of it was meant to be. And those occurrences have been sporadic and have been severely limited to a very small number of people. None of the events have been proved to have come from a student/students, as you pointed out. Frankly, I don’t know who you hang out with, but a group of us were just discussing this in class today, and none of us feel like race is a huge issue here amongst us students. The problem is everyone else pointing our so-called “racial issues” out, and then everyone nitpicks through our school and finds the smallest of racial issues that a very small group of people hold.</p>

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<p>dont get me confused with wahoomb. you’re claims about me are way off target</p>

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<p>Yeah, you two picked awesome names ;)</p>

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<p>as a minority, I think that race-relations are an issue that is only brought up by outsiders (as someone pointed out earlier). Within the university I feel that most students are comfortable with the UVa environment. Most of us interact with people from all sorts of backgrounds all the time. There are enough minorities walking around that it isn’t hard to find a few that will be walking together.</p>

<p>Imagine yourself at a chinese university, do you not think you will find yourselves naturally drawn to other caucasians because of your ethnic similarities?</p>

<p>Again I’m not trying to say that race relations are perfect or anything, I just wanted to point out that defining race relations based strictly on seeing ethnic groups hanging out together is a poor measurement of the “mixing” that really does go on here.</p>

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<p>UVA isn’t as tight-knit or integrated as say, John Lennon’s ideal society, but still. </p>

<p>There is some self-segregation. I say this is more common among athletes … and well, a lot of the people who got in because of athletics happen to be black, and there isn’t a lot of mixing between them and say the rest of the student body. I think it’s just a combination of their interests and their social network (as athletes) … not because of race. </p>

<p>For my observations, segregation takes place along academic performance and social interest lines.</p>

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<p>I don’t think shoebox10 was confusing us, as I clearly agreed with everything he was saying. The OP should notice that Wazhoom (a white male student) and I (a latino male student) will obviously have diverging opinions on race relations and integration at UVA because of our own personal experiences here at the University. Some people choose to think about race relations at UVA all day and talk about it all day (like Sustained Dialogue and some minority groups like LSU)…yet (in my opinion) do little to change anything. What I’m about to say, might stir up a little controversy but what my friends and I often wondered was why do white students feel like they have to have at least one minority friend to not feel “bad”? It’s not going to make you a “segregationist” if you don’t. I know people at UVA whose entire circle of friends are composed 100% of people of the same background and they don’t feel in the least concerned about it. OP–when your son comes to college, he will become friends with people of different colors/races and ethnic backgrounds and that’s how it will naturally come. I don’t want to say “what’s wrong with segregation?” but why are Americans so obsessed in defining everything into black and white. It’s something that I never quite understood while at UVA and most of my international friends didn’t either.</p>

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<p>“The problem is everyone else pointing our so-called “racial issues” out”</p>

<p>Maybe it is brought up so frequently by “outsiders” because it is noticeable to them? That is, maybe it is different enough from the usual enviroment (as in my son’s case) that they note and inquire about it?</p>

<p>I don’t want to overstate my son’s concerns-- it isn’t like he is constantly immersed in multicultural activities at home-- he and his friends here just don’t seem to have any interest in race one way or the other. We don’t have long family discussions about racial justice. Prior to his trip to UVA, I can’t remember the last time he expressed any thoughts/opinions/observations at all about race.</p>

<p>As to why Americans are so touchy about it-- Obviously, racial inequality plays a big role in our history. Why are germans so touchy about antisemitism???</p>

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<p>No, it’s often brought up by people who have either never visited the school or who have “heard things”. We’re a southern school with very difficult admissions, people label us as southern money. We’re not.
Also, as a tour guide, I’ve never heard this question addressed before on a tour, but maybe that’s because the e-school is heavily racially integrated, but academically segregated. Go figure…</p>