Mary Rose Corkery, DCNF
The University of Michigan-Dearborn said it regretted the terms used to describe two race-themed virtual student events on Tuesday and hadn’t intended to be “exclusionary.”
The university’s Center For Social Justice and Inclusion hosted two online cafes, one for “students that do not identify as persons of color” and the other for “Black, Indigenous and People of Color,” according to event descriptions.
“The BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color) Cafe is a space for student [sic] from marginalized racial/ethnic/cultural communities to gather and to relate with one another,” the event description said.
The other event was described as “a space for students that do not identify as persons of color to gather and to discuss their experience as students on campus and as non-POC in the world.”
Update! Seems like @UM_Dearborn has two cafes. Competing cafes. I get the intention but this was not thought out and very lazy. pic.twitter.com/BqTFy8rXN6
— Abed A. Ayoub (@aayoub) September 9, 2020
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) September 9, 2020
The university said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation, “The terms used to describe these virtual events and the descriptions themselves were not clear and not reflective of the university’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
“The events were never intended to be exclusive or exclusionary for individuals of a certain race. Both events were open to all members of the UM-Dearborn campus community,” the statement said.
University of Michigan-Dearborn Vice Chancellor Ken Kettenbeil told the DCNF, “It could have been clearer that the entire campus community was invited to participate in either event (even though events were posted on social media that our entire campus community follows).”
“Do we apologize for this, yes,” he added.
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