Posted on 08/14/2016 8:51:50 AM PDT by EinNYC
A collective of colleges in Los Angeles suburb has been in an uproar for the past week over Facebook posts from students with one request for housing: No white roommates.
A Facebook post from Karé Ureña, a junior at Pitzer College at the Claremont Colleges, asked for fellow students to join an off-campus house for the upcoming school year.
“POC only,” she wrote, using the abbreviation for “people of color.”
Ureña, who is black, added, “I don’t want to live with any white folks.”
The post, first reported by the Claremont Independent student magazine, sparked outrage from the campus and denouncements from school administration.
Other Pitzer students pushed back on the request, setting off a fierce debate on a private Facebook page.
“POC only?’ Maybe I’m missing something or misunderstanding your post, but how is that not a racist thing to say?” Pitzer student Dalia Zada wrote, according to the Independent.
Another student wrote “housing segregation is illegal.”
Pitzer student Terriyonna Smith later wrote back: “White people always mad when they don’t feel included but at the end of the day y’all are damaging asf (as f---) and if a POC feels they need to protect themselves from that toxic environment THEY CAN! Quick to try to jump on a POC but you won’t call your friends out when they’re being racist asf...I’m not responding to NO comments and NOPE I don’t wanna have a dialogue.”
Pitzer President Melvin Oliver —who last year became the college’s first African-American president — said the roomie request was “inconsistent with our Mission and values.”
“This is but another example to us that social media is not an effective platform to engage in complex dialog on seemingly intractable critical issues that have varied histories and contested understandings,” he wrote in a message sent to the campus community.
“They create more heat than light and invite extreme viewpoints that intentionally obfuscate the nuanced context that surrounds these issues.”
Ureña and her roommate, Pomona College student Sajo Jefferson, defended their request in a statement to The Washington Post, which said minority students feel ostracized on campus.
“When and if you understand this context, it becomes clear that students of color seeking a living space that is all-POC is not only reasonable, but can be necessary,” the statement said.
“We live in a world where the living circumstances of POC are grounded in racist social structures that we can not opt out of. These conditions threaten the minds, bodies and souls of people of color both within and without the realms of higher education. We are fighting to exist.”
Ureña said her friends have since found their roommate, and she has deleted the post.
Pitzer is part of Claremont Colleges, a group of small liberal arts schools in Claremont, Califorinia, that also comprises Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College, as well as Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences.
According to school data, 48% of Pitzer’s 1,067 undergraduates are white; only 5% are African American.
Classes at Pitzer are scheduled to start Aug. 30.
I’ve been told since birth this is reprehensible language. WTF?
Actually, you, SoCalPubbie, are the one who is wrong.
Laws against housing discrimination are applicable to landlords.
Individuals have every right to choose a compatible roommate.
At least for now.
You meant 1966, correct? Trying to head off the spelling/detail police!
The descriptor ‘People of Color’ makes me /smh.
What? I have no color? Am I Transparent??
I’m here, I’m Clear, get use to it!
Let me start by saying I understand if this had been a white person it would have been considered racist.
But it is not. Why is it so bad to want to live with a person of your same heritage? Why is it racist of me to want to live with a white person instead of a black person.
For some reason it has become bad to like ones self and ones race. It has also became bad to love ones nation, termed nationalist. You should love your country and be proud of it, as well as your heritage.
I see nothing wrong with wanting to live with someone that is similar to yourself.
I hate this PC culture and cannot wait until it finds itself in the wastebin of history.
We can think of a few places where she won’t have to live with “white folks.”
While the Ninth Circuit Court did allow certain third party immunity from the Fair Housing Act to the third party in Fair Housing Council v Roomates.com, I wouldn’t bet the farm that the Supreme Court would uphold the right for individual tenants to discriminate on the basis of race religion or national origin. Even if my first point was incorrect from a legal standpoint, my other two points clearly argued that the poster to which I dressed my comments was not thinking clearly by trying to maintain that it was nobody’s business but the person who plays the ad.
If a white person did this EXACT SAME THING, it would make national news. Blacks are some of the most racist people on the planet.
The media is part of the problem, when they decide what receives national attention.
Nope, believe it or not, eighteen sixty six.
There was a famous case, Plessy vs Ferguson (1896), that challenged this and wound up creating the segregation doctrine that was followed until the Brown vs Board of Education (1954) case. Jones vs Mayer (1968) provided a constitutional basis for the 1866 law.
Karé Ureña would have a problem if he or she were to ask race on an application and or have each resident of the house sign a lease or refuse to sign a lease based on a person’s race.
However. Karé Ureña, once he or she signs a lease with the owner if the house, can choose who lives in the house.
To belive otherwise, would be to believe that someone could knock on your door one day, ask to rent a room in your home, then sue you for not renting them the room and claim your decision was based on race.
As for a more relevant example. I own several pieces of rental property near a university. One of the houses has ten bedrooms and is rented to a fraternity.
From the best I can tell it is an Asian fraternity, but I have never asked, and the lease does not specify that it is an Asian fraternity.
The fraternity selects their members and their residents.
As for me, I don’t care if the occupants are Asian or not.
No laws are being violated.
Don’t forget the latinos, POC also stands for “piece o’ chit”.
-—Are you kidding? She will thrive in such a setting, with plenty of willing help from HR-—
That depends on the HR dept...
Bringing charges of racism or discrimination are serious issue...you better have some serious evidence to back it up...
People who cry wolf too many times will find the exit door...
I never had a black roommate while going to undergrad college. In an off-campus townhouse apartment, I did have, at different times, a Japanese roommate and a Chinese roommate. They were both very nice, high class individuals. And they taught me how to use chopsticks!
Nope, the problem is with the advertisement she placed. You CANNOT specify race in an ad period. No denial of lease required. There are people in HUD that actually peruse ads looking for this very thing. I guess they haven’t hit facebook yet.
Per your items:
Anyone can CLAIM to be denied on the basis of race. The burden is on the claimant to prove it. So, yes, that situation is plausible and does happen.
If your lease is signed by an actual fraternity, as opposed to, let’s say, a fraternity in name only, that’s a lease with a non-profit association (which would be state registered) as opposed to a lease with an individual(s).
That’s different. If the organization chooses to restrict by race, they may do so, as long as they don’t receive federal funding. That’s why the KKK can be WASP only.
If the fraternity are subleasing rooms to members, they may do so even though it is a discriminatory group. Religious organization do the same, though this is not race, it is more common.
If however, your frat places an ad in a public newspaper, as opposed to making it available to members, they are in trouble, that is, if someone notices and complains.
It takes no more evidence these days, with practically any HR department, than a claim that some sort of racism or discrimination is “perceived”. Facts and reason are irrelevant. I have seen this, though fortunately not as the hapless individual against whom such a charge has been made.
Well, of course any HR departments takes any “perceived" racism or discrimination charge as serious, you don't and you find out lawyers are real expensive...
My point was she will only get a few times to cry wolf and the company will find a way to get her out the door before wasting HR time and resources anymore on this nonsense...
Yeah, right, whatever you say.
Such a complaint has been lodged, in Michigan, though the case was dropped. However, as I stated above, this case is in California is certainly not “none of our business,” unless I misunderstood your intent in so posting. Even if legally allowed to do do, her actions are fair game for anyone to criticize as an example of today’s hypocrisy in race relations.
If I read it right, the discriminatory ad was posted in a campus newspaper.
I wonder if it would be racist to ask only for Dean’s List students so they could help me with my homework?
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