To the Pace University Community:

Our last work received a significant amount of interest, in which we are exceedingly humbled. Only time will tell whether or not our talents continue to be celebrated; especially when we take on the task of tackling tenacious topics, that when talked about thwart the mind and body with a terrible sense of crippling anxiety. We are by no means a prophet, yet we predict that we will not be received as well this time around. However, if we were to let this foretelling prevent us from addressing this issue of injustice, we would be as cowardly as those we plan to address.

Pace University claims celebrate social justice and diversity. We do things like make the university theme centered on justice, we have a director of Multicultural Affairs and Diversity Programs, and this year, we even allowed our student body to elect some lunatic to the SGA E-board as VP of Unity and Social Justice. It appears as if we are making a sincere effort to confront social justice and diversity issues; however, appearances are not necessarily reality.

Pace claims to be diverse, yet most of our minority young men are here primarily for athletics, we can count the minority representation in our staff and faculty on our hands, and rumor has it that several semester ago under the direction of a former associate director of a department (that may or may not be responsible for housing) a staff of domiciliaRy AideS was altered due to having too many minorities on the staff and the reasoning was that this was not representative of the Pace Community. Critical Question: would the same procedure have taken place if the staff consisted of all W.A.S.P.?

But I digress. The last thing I want is for readers to fall into the trap of thinking diversity only pertains to race relations.  In our humble opinion, the most important aspect of diversity to embrace is diversity of opinion; which Pace also claims to welcome with open arms. The truth is we have been hoodwinked on this matter. The culture at Pace is that it is acceptable to have an opinion, even a controversial opinion, as long as it is popular opinion. To validate this claim, we will tell you a story about a student’s interaction with a particular office that claims to Strategically Develop College Aspirations.

Last semester, a student created an original program where he solicited the services of a group that celebrates all aspects of life and promotes this in their approaches to addressing issues such as pregnancy on college campuses. The student was told that if he did not accommodate the services of another organization with an opposing view point to promote diversity of opinion, he would face disciplinary actions and a possible law suit. This appears as if this was done with noble intentions to promote justice, yet we have already seen that appearance is not necessarily reality. This particular organization that bullied the student into getting their way has been on this campus many times and has to our knowledge never invited a group with an opposing view point to offer diversity opinion. This was one of the greatest cases of hypocrisy.

Secondly, should a student that has an opposing view point be forced to accommodate others that fundamentally disagree with them at a program they designed? Think of what this campus would be like if every time Omega Phi Beta hosted a domestic violence event and BSU hosted Black History Programs the office forced them to accommodate a Neo-NAZI group that claimed men should be permitted to hit their wives and thought that Blacks are an inferior group. This idea seems ridiculous when the scenarios presented appear to be black and white morally; however when topics such as rights to life and reproductive rights gets brought up, things get dicey – and when things get dicey, Pace reinforces the idea that you can have passion and zeal for a cause, as long as that cause fits into the box of the status quo here. This is the type of student that is successful when working with this particular office that claims to Strategically Develop College Aspirations; the student that is a puppet and is content to dance on strings at the command of their masters. Those that are courageous enough to express individuality and go against the grain are mocked, ridiculed, and even threatened into submission.

Now to our knowledge, the student that was forced into this situation of accommodation (to whom we have no affiliation) had no intention of banning the opposing group from campus. He is an advocate of free speech and expression and feels that any group should be given a platform; if you disagree with the platform, you do not have to listen. However he thinks it is very foolish to force any student to host the services of a group that they fundamentally disagree with on basic principles. He also thinks it is foolish of Pace to only enforce the idea of diversity of opinion when it is convenient for the University. The question becomes… is this Justice? And is this campus truly diverse? Again, we will remain silent as the SPHINX and allow this question to be addressed by future students because clearly, this student is far ahead of his time. We will retreat to the high ground of our throne and watch as these events unfold.

Yours Truly,

The PHIlosopher KingZ