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To be a student of color on the campus of a predominantly white institution (PWI) is to explicitly be reminded that your existence is contingent upon your ability to assimilate to a culture unequipped for you to thrive. It is one of the primary reasons student activists have historically pushed for the creation of cultural centers — buildings designated for students of a particular racial or ethnic minority.
As we live to see the aftermath of the racial reckoning in 2020, these safe havens that center the existence and experiences of BIPOC students are even more critical to campus life at PWIs. Although universities, like Arizona State University (ASU), have committed to erecting these spaces, my own experience has made one thing extremely clear: “multicultural” centers that are absent of a clear and intentional plan of action from administrators are only tools to pacify the concerns of the underserved and underrepresented student population — a clear perpetuation of the inequities that persist in American society.
When I began my academic career at ASU as a first-generation college student in 2016, I quickly noticed that the university was lacking resources for BIPOC students. The most obvious is a multicultural center — a space where students of color could feel safe to study, pray, gather and simply exist. With the university being the only state institution in Arizona (and possibly the country) that had not established a place nor support programs for underrepresented minorities, I, along with members of the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition (MSC), went on to spend the last three years fighting to bring forth this vital asset to minority student success. Immediately following the social unrest of Summer 2020, university administration finally committed to realizing this vision, introducing their LIFT (Listen, Invest, Facilitate, Teach) initiative to enhance diversity for Black students, faculty and staff.
Our fight to curate spaces that embrace and protect multiculturalism echoes throughout the country. For decades, student activists have been fighting for spaces that provide brief solace from the discrimination, microaggressions and hypervisibility students of color are often subjected to. Most spaces at PWIs are centered on the concerns and ideas of the majority-white student population.
Without structure and a clear mission, the term “multicultural” can often create ambiguity about who these spaces are designated for. However, the issue is less focused on “who” but rather “what” these spaces are designed to do. Multiculturalism is rooted in the need to embed community, collective identity and cultural competency into our institutional structures. However, the reality is that the intent of these cultural spaces gets lost in the perpetuation of blanket statements that implicitly honor the centering of the dominant campus climate. Who protects the integrity and safety of cultural hubs? Without the support of university administrators, it is oftentimes the unspoken responsibility of the student activists who mobilized for its creation. An experience I know far too well.
In September 2021, less than a month after the official opening of ASU’s Multicultural Center, the safety and integrity of the space was compromised when two white male students sat in the center displaying dissonant phrases which directly contradicted the intent for the space.
Despite my meeting with university administrators outlining the framework for the newly opened space that same day, ASU officials lent little support in assisting to alleviate the situation, making it the responsibility of the students (I and two other MSC members) to confront the male students. Consequently, the students of color who fought for the creation of the center were deemed aggressors by the university. While the administration elected to not pursue suspension or expulsion, we were still left to deal with the residual effects of the incident — including being subject to severe cyberbullying.
Situations like this are not at all isolated. Though there are various accounts in which students of color have exercised their moral obligation to protect the competency of cultural centers, many of these accounts are often undocumented. The incidents that do make their way to mainstream awareness often criminalize the minority party for upholding the values of these spaces. We witnessed this same outcome in February 2020, when an unnamed Black student calmly stated that there were “too many white people” in the University of Virginia's newly opened Multicultural Student Center. Arguing that the center should be a safe place for people of color and that white students in the center should remain mindful of the space they are occupying.
The social unrest that peaked in 2020 after the death of George Floyd forced many institutions to have their own reckoning and reevaluate how they center on DEI efforts. More often, their efforts are carried out through programming and student-led activities that put the onus on students to fulfill these efforts and absolve PWI leadership from implementing action items that go beyond surface-level support but rather structurally change the social and educational inequities for students of color. There has been hesitancy from academic leaders to allocate spaces dedicated to students of color — students that universities like ASU have actively recruited with little effort to foster a campus environment that reflects its evolving student population. ASU is the most diverse it has ever been, with more than 47% of incoming first-year students identifying with BIPOC backgrounds, and still students of color are left with the heavy lift of creating their own spaces that stimulate multicultural learning, understanding and values.
It is a true disservice to prospective and current students of color when universities merely create multicultural spaces without the true intent of proactively curating an environment that provides a sense of security for students of color to exist in the space as their whole selves and with their experiences. The simple creation of cultural centers without a plan of action that ensures the integrity of the space is an act of performative activism that should no longer be tolerated. To truly uphold their spoken commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, administrators of predominantly white institutions must invest the time in collaborating with minority campus groups to adequately allocate resources that center the voices and experiences of this student population while also making room for diverse learning and inclusivity.
If PWIs refuse to intentionally invest in the welfare of students of color when faced with implicit and explicit attacks of white supremacy, xenophobia and antisemitism, then we should no longer continue to build a ladder for the marginalized at these institutions. In my own experience, I have come to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s conclusion that we have integrated our people into a burning building. ASU is on fire, and we cannot continue creating pathways to help BIPOC students get into ASU if the university will not protect or support Black and brown students.
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Sarra Tekola is an Arizona State University Ph.D. candidate, student organizer and founder of ASU’s Multicultural Solidarity Coalition.
