The University of Toronto is situated in what is arguably the most diverse city in the world, and nearly all accounts of the institution take that into consideration. We have international students from all over the globe, and domestic students also bring an array of experiences and identities with them. A look at the students squelching across a wet Front Campus affirms the narratives we hear about a diverse, inclusionary university.
I’m tired of hearing this visible diversity used as a defense of some great progress that we have achieved, to defer conversations on the urgency of promoting equity.
This is not because I do not want to acknowledge the presence of a variety of experiences among our students, or the successes various people have enjoyed. It is that the context I hear this in is so often a sort of rebuttal, when students start talking about problems marginalized communities still face, like Islamophobia in our classrooms, and racism embedded in the way we approach our curriculum.
There’s a romanticization of the concept of “progress,” of moving forward with a society that has slowly realized its mistakes and an institution that has looked to further its academic merit by benefitting from intelligent minds, regardless of other aspects of their identities, I hear that I am being “too critical,” or not appreciating the work that has been done so far.
Should I really be appreciative that I can now take classes and attend events at Hart House along with other female students? That implies an acceptance that things are slowly getting better, rather than a critique of how exclusionary our setup has been from the start. It also obscures the immense work that students and student communities put into creating an equitable institution.
There is a need to openly acknowledge that the university’s structures are based on exclusion. From the systematic exclusion of women at Hart House to the continuing financial barriers to education, these things abound in the institution’s history and present. But what sneaks through with so little recognition are the constant validation of dominant perspectives and a refusal to acknowledge a Western, Euro-centric outlook that privileges certain types of thought and discourse. This is not an
inclusive discourse.
The innumerable times I have heard a professor mention something either offensive or just grossly inaccurate about Islam or Muslims in the four years I have been attending lectures serves mainly to remind me what my role as a Muslim on campus has to be. I have a responsibility to highlight the adverse impact this has on both Muslim students who feel marginalized by such rhetoric and those who may unconsciously pick up on these damaging nuances.
There are projects happening on campus to incorporate gender-neutral washrooms, assess physical accessibility, and expand multi-faith spaces for students to pray or meditate. But changes in perspectives of the professors who stand before hundreds, or at times thousands, of students are slow to come. Regular equity and anti-oppression sessions are deemed too difficult to enforce. Euro-centrism is defended and justified by noting that we exist in the West, and mentioning critical studies programs that employ different approaches.
We are told there is space for debate and dialogue, but students are left to create those spaces themselves. Students and student groups like the Muslim Students’ Association were at the forefront of allowing women access to Hart House. It is knowledge and experience that students of various identities need to push for more change. Larger and more established student groups have enough organizational history and knowledge of resources to find ways to approach administration for change, but the average student, disconnected from communities on campus (and let’s face it, many students don’t get or take the opportunity to get involved) is left with little to fall back on.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education professor George Dei, whose work is on anti-racism in education, often remarks that “any community is as good as we collectively work to make it.” More concerted support from the university is essential to creating ways to address what prevents all students from engaging in the academic realm free of even subtle forms of oppression. The progress we have made should be looked to as a model, to learn from the work of those who came before us, not to make us complacent with what appears to some a comfortable status quo.
Noor Baig is a final-year English and equity studies student and an executive on the Muslim Students’ Association. She has served as vice-president, equity with the University of Toronto Students’ Union.
