Commentary

Diversity not served by limiting ways community can be diverse

To the Editor:
In the discussion about Tribe 8 and censorship held in the last GF meeting, a bizarre and seldom-expressed point about Oberlin and diversity was raised. It is part of our mission to be a progressive and diverse institution, and one of our traditional interpretations of this is to allow for a wide range of ideas on campus through an "anything goes" type of mentality.

Some challenge this mentality, claiming that our lack of explicit limitations on behavior (short of prohibiting violence) yields a homogeneous student body which believes that a lack of explicit limitations is a good thing. It is perceived that a diverse body would include those who had more narrow definitions of appropriate or morally acceptable behavior. Furthermore, our failure to institute limitations based on those narrower definitions acts to drive away the students who have them. The argument is that in order to facilitate diversity, we must set more restrictive community standards to appeal to those alienated by our anti-restrictive outlook.

It may be that this is a Catch-22. Diversity is not best served by limiting the ways in which the community can be diverse. Our current outlook implicitly limits the diversity of the student body, and the proposed restrictions would explicitly limit that diversity.

I contend that our implicit limitations give us a better chance of overcoming the Catch-22 than the explicit limitations would. The question, ultimately, is this: to whom do we decide to cater? To those with restrictive points of view or to those with permissive points of view? Will we recruit those who would dictate our actions at the expense of our freedom? Only an open point of view keeps the gates to diversity and progress open. And keeping an open mind does not mean that we forego the right to challenge the opinions of others - it just means that we may not dictate them.

-Joshua Kaye (College Junior)

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