Discriminating space?

By Ryan Groshong

One campus organization's failed attempt to gain residency in the Multicultural Center has led to frustration and accusations of cultural discrimination.

Le Club Francophone, formerly the French Club, applied for residency in the fall of 2003, and was told that, because their name change technically made them a new club, they did not fit the MCC requirement that a club must be active for a year before being eligible for residency.

"Le Club Francophone is not even an issue with the MCC, honestly, because they didn't check what the requirements were to apply for residency," said MCC Director Mayka Mei.

But members of the French club believe their rejection was motivated by discrimination and not the technicality of a name change.

That club was not the first in recent years to be denied residency. The university's Gay and Lesbian Alliance was denied a petition in 2003.

The name change of Le Club Francophone was partly motivated to reflect the diversity of the group and "fit better with the MCC," according to Anahita Razmazma, the club's co-president.

"They knew all the while, we told them the first time we met, we're the Francophone club, formerly the French Club, but we never thought they would do that to us so we never asked 'is it OK for us to change our name?'" said Razmazma.

The club is made up of students from ethnic backgrounds of various Francophone countries, including Egyptian, Chinese and Vietnamese.

According to its charter, the MCC's mission is to "provide the minority student organizations of Santa Clara University an environment conducive to the unique expression and appreciation of the different cultures of people of color."

The document goes on to define "people of color" as "a racial or ethnic minority group, who live in the United States, have deep roots or are developing roots in the culture of the United States, have been historically and politically under-represented, have experienced and continue to experience institutionalized discrimination and have been and continue to be economically undeserved."

"The reason why we thought that we could fit in the MCC is because we have members from a lot of different backgrounds," said Razmazma.

Le Club Francophone has between 20 and 25 active members who regularly attend meetings, as well as an e-mail list of over 200 people, the club said.

These membership numbers are similar to that of most MCC clubs, Mei said.

"I don't think it makes sense to have something called the Multicultural Center that should be focused on culture. And basically, culture is not necessarily ethnicity. You don't have to be a minority to have culture," said Razmazma.

The name "Multicultural Center" was given by the administration, but their charter says the club's purpose is to accommodate minority student organizations.

The club also believed that much of the American anti-French sentiment leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 further qualified them to be an MCC club.

"Newspaper cartoons that I brought into the MCC showed how the press had made fun of French culture and its people," said Marshall Mort, the group's other co-president.

"Why should this be tolerated?" Mort asked. "When the MCC refuses to acknowledge this issue, they are, in effect, tolerating and being a bystander to the very ideology of hate that this organization is designed to fight against."

Mei, however, maintains that the decision was based on application requirements, and had nothing to do with Le Club Francophone's European identity.

"I'm not going to deny that they're a diverse group and I'm not going to say that their culture's history is not something worth looking at," she said, adding that it "wasn't an issue" of whether or not they fit the MCC's charter.

It was instead an issue of the club "not looking at what was needed before they applied," Mei said. "They can say they were discriminated against but really they didn't do their research."

Mei declined to comment on how Le Club Francophone's application would have been treated had they not changed their name.

When the MCC went through the administrative re-chartering process in the spring of 2003, GALA members petitioned to have the MCC include all institutionally oppressed groups -- in addition to minority ethnic groups.

"At this current time, the decision was made to keep the charter the same with the definition of ethnic minority for many reasons," Raquel Hackley, then advisor to the MCC, told The Santa Clara in 2003.

She added that since the MCC was having trouble accommodating ethnic groups, it would be difficult to include other types of groups as well.

"LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) communities don't fit the current MCC constitution in what it defines as culture," Mei said.

However, Josh Crosson, president of GALA believes that sexual identity is a form of culture and that since GALA represents this "queer culture" they rightfully deserve a place in the MCC.

"GALA has a culture, there is queer culture, there are queer communities and because of that we thought we should be part of the Multicultural Center. GALA's being a club in the AS is equally seen as the Dawson's Creek Club, it's not seen as an important entity of the university, which it should be," Crosson said.

Despite their rejection, Crosson felt that in the past two years GALA had been included in MCC events almost as though they were a member, but this year due to a lack of inclusion from current MCC leadership, that relationship has begun to deteriorate.

Mei disagreed with this claim, and said "we do reach out (to GALA) as much as any other group on campus can in terms of programming and what's practical -- I feel like we've made efforts."

Just as these clubs have been having issues with the MCC, the MCC claims they have been having problems in dealing with Santa Clara administration on issues of physical space within the MCC and diversity issues on campus. Too often, they say, they are used as just a "photo-op" for marketing publications and brochures.

"I think the problem is we don't have space on this campus for our students in general," MCC advisor Tam Nguyen said.

She went on to say that efforts were being made by various offices to address MCC space issue.

University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., nor representatives from his office were available for comment this week.

* Contact Ryan Groshong at (408) 554-4546 or rgroshong@scu.edu.