MY VIEW/George Mason's Unintended Consequences

The Student Center at George Mason University in Fairfax.

Fairfax, VA. - Far too often in history societies support an initiative solely because the proponents use the right catchphrases. Using the correct symbols and buzzwords can effectively inhibit intellectual discourse and rational debate. This happens in all sorts of communities and cultures, even educated intelligent ones.

Enter George Mason University, a multicultural college whose campus climate worships diversity. Administrators for Mason see it as their mission to advance ideas in the name of diversity. These ideas, seldom challenged by students due to their lack of institutional influence, have created certain unexpected results, results that contradict what diversity means.

For decades Mason celebrated its diversity with a series of events during the spring semester called International Week. The opening ceremony was the “Parade of Nations”, a major gathering in which scores of students representing over a hundred countries paraded around campus, each bearing a flag of a nation represented by Mason’s student body.

This visual declaration of diversity came to an end last year. In response to some petty complaints over certain polities being represented and others not,  Mason’s Office of International Programs and Services decided to change the ceremony to a “Parade of Students.”
    
This new format eliminated large flags from the parade, having students dress in whatever they believe expresses their culture. As OIPS Director Judith A. Green mentioned in an interview with the student newspaper Broadside, removal of national flags would make the parade “more inclusive.”

However the opposite occurred. On the day of the parade instead of over a hundred students marching with their banners held high, there were barely twenty or so, and half of them were from the same country. Whole continents were unrepresented by the few who participated, making it a much less inclusive affair.

In the same semester Mason gained mass media attention when they elected a drag queen for Homecoming Queen. Beating out two women, the drag queen’s victory was hailed as a triumph of tolerance. Even the associate director of Mason’s Women and Gender Studies Department Vicki Kirsch called it a “significant and positive benchmark in Mason's history.”

This year, a year later, the powers that be at Mason decided to take this diversity a step further. Mason’s Office of Student Activities alongside Program Board decided to alter the Homecoming competition, removing the terms “Homecoming King” and “Homecoming Queen” and replacing them with “Mason Majesty.”

The reason? According to a Broadside article, Assistant Director of Programming in Student Activities Michelle Davis stated that “we wanted to be more inclusive to all persons on campus — no matter how they identify…”

Once again, the cry for inclusiveness.
 
Yet once again, an unintended result came to pass. This year at Mason’s Homecoming, the winner of the “Mason Majesty” was Lee Warner. What this means is that no woman has won any homecoming honor in two years. In the name of inclusiveness, homecoming at Mason has become a male-dominated enterprise.

Just to review, over the span of one year Mason administrators have alienated numerous international students and made homecoming a competition in which women victors have sharply decreased. All done in the name of diversity.

When people begin to propagate harmful ideas for a community, they often use symbols and catchphrases that pay homage to things held sacred by a community. This aids in eliminating civil discourse and constructive criticism; for few at Mason would dare oppose the lofty ideals of tolerance, diversity, and inclusiveness, the holy trinity of far too many ivory towers.

Because of overruling power and supposed ties to the aforementioned triumvirate, Mason leadership have tampered with student events because of their increasingly distorted vision of inclusion.
 
My plea, as an alumnus of this young university, is that they start to look beyond terms and truly examine the merits of what is being proposed, lest more labors for inclusiveness create the opposite.  

Michael Gryboski is a Local Kicks columnist who lives in Alexandria. Contact him at Mcgryboski@aol.com.