Silence: not an effective strategy for change

By Editorial

In an e-mail to several staff members of The Santa Clara last week, University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., stated the theme party meeting held last Thursday was "not a meeting for a report or article in the student newspaper."

Jim Briggs, executive assistant to the president, said Locatelli didn't want what was said in the meeting to be written about because people who attended were told it was a confidential discussion, allowing them to be free and open in their conversations.

While it is reasonable for the university to ask that what was said in the meeting be kept confidential, which The Santa Clara has done, administrators are failing to keep the community informed by trying to keep meetings regarding the theme party secretive.

Let's be honest: The theme party did not put Santa Clara in a good light when CNN and other major media outlets picked up the story. But this coverage seems to have shell-shocked Locatelli and other administrators into not wanting any more discussion in the public realm about the theme parties.

There is a pattern of silence that has developed here at Santa Clara. From not talking about Michelle Bento-Jackson's firing and re-hiring, to not discussing the circumstances of Dick Davey's retirement, to the theme party, administrators have decided that silence is the best way to make problems go away.

It's not.

The fact that the university is holding meetings with athletes, members of the Multicultural Center and top administrators -- including Locatelli -- is a good thing. It shows that they are serious about tackling diversity-related problems.

But when students have no idea these meetings are taking place, only the select few that are involved are aware of these positive steps.

When he became aware of the theme party, Locatelli sent out a campus-wide e-mail that condemned the parties. This was an acceptable way to initially address the issue, but that's where the communication stopped.

After the story was picked up in the local and then national press, there was never a word from Locatelli in the news, except when the impersonal e-mail he sent in reaction to the party was quoted.

Locatelli could have been out on the forefront, talking to the news outlets about how this is a nation-wide problem and declaring that Santa Clara was going to be a leader in addressing it head-on. Talking to the press could have made just as big of an impact as the pictures from the party did.

Instead, those images are what people remember. And by trying to keep meetings like the one from this past week quiet, the pictures -- instead of what was done in response -- will be the party's lasting legacy.

Five years from now, how should we remember this incident? We hope that it will be remembered not just as a symbol of ignorance, but as the starting point for a new attitude at Santa Clara. With open discussions and new measures to improve upon diversity, the theme party could usher in a new era.

Unfortunately, the university seems to think the best way to move on is in silence, in the hopes that time will slowly erase the theme parties from our memories. This non-policy will not lead to real change and will give all of us a collective skeleton in our closet that we should be ashamed of.

The university should accept reality, face the challenge and let students and the community know: We have a problem, and we are going to deal with it.