I must have missed the memorandum that read “Pepperdine University is now seeking to homogenize the student body.” The last I remember the University was going out of its way to recruit students who have diverse backgrounds. Perhaps the word “diverse” could use some defining. It seems like we have a hard time disassociating diversity and race. Many things contribute to a person’s classification as culturally diverse (e.g. socio-economic status sexual orientation ethnicity religion etc.). Therefore to mention diversity in an article and then directly (or indirectly) target minorities of race would seem to me to mean that the article is inherently flawed such as last week’s editorial.
I have heard it said that graduations are a time to recognize the “merit” of an individual as it pertains to the levels of academic rigor they have experienced in the past four years or so. But is that all? I think that we are intuitively inclined to think that graduations ought to commemorate a little more than that. What about our experiences outside the classroom? What about who we are and where we come from? Should these things not be included in a graduation ceremony? I believe our intuitions fall on the side that graduations should capture these things. Unfortunately one general commencement ceremony at the end of a school year “misses the mark” when trying to account for these intuitions.
The purpose of the newly instated Multicultural Graduation Ceremony is to capture everything else that general commencement does not. For instance the ability to wear culturally significant attire is something that is prohibited at the general commencement ceremony. Interestingly this is yet another sanction by the institution to call students to be drones in black robes.
Should we forget those elements of our makeup that make us different at perhaps one of the most significant moments in our lives in the service of contributing to some sort of perceived unity on campus? No. And we shouldn’t have to.
The truth is that we are different. God made it so. The fact that we are all able to share different experiences and represent different backgrounds is a thing that should be exalted and not silenced. The idea that this ceremony implies “that only students of targeted backgrounds should apply” is exactly right! One might ask what exactly is a targeted background? However you know what that targeted background is? It is any background that may possess any cultural relevance. That is everyone. Um isn’t that everyone? Those students who make up the majority at Pepperdine and feel that the ceremony seeks to include only those who are not the majority seem to have some individual issues in their rationale if they conclude this from the fact that this is a multicultural ceremony. That is a non sequitur (meaning the conclusion does not follow from the premises).
I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that this ceremony promotes division on campus. Every institution that has these sorts of ceremonies including schools that Pepperdine aspires to be like has enjoyed a long history of inclusion and unity on its campus. So how do we perceive an there being some sort of impending division problem when all of our empirical evidence suggests otherwise? Furthermore if there is a division problem on this campus this ceremony did not create it. It would seem to be the case that our division problem existed prior to this ceremony’s arrival. All the ceremony has done is to this has done was simply exfoliate the dead skin over the Pepperdine atmosphere and bring a serious issue to the front.
Seniors I hope to see you all there!