Campus community addresses civility in Ombuds office forum

More than 50 members of the University community gathered in the Frist Campus Center multipurpose room for lunch yesterday at the Ombuds Office Civility Forum. The event, which was meant to further campus discussion about diversity and conflict resolution, featured five speakers and an extended discussion period that saw engaged debate from many members of the audience.

"The civility program is a time for us to elicit concerns on fairness, respect and diversity and from all corners of our campus," University Ombuds Officer Anu Rao said in her opening remarks.

The speakers included Catherine Toppin '02, Women's Center director Amada Sandoval, politics graduate student Asli Bali, American studies Program Manager Judith Ferszt, service employee union local president Tom Parker and Rabbi James Diamond of the Center for Jewish Life.

Each speaker tried to highlight a specific issue of civility and respect for consideration by the larger group.

"Diversity isn't just a minority issue," Toppin said. She suggested holding sensitivity training for members of the University community to help people, especially faculty, understand the issues that minority students face, both academically and socially.

Sandoval followed a similar theme, warning of the danger of "internalizing norms without examining them."

"Power issues are at stake when we invoke civility," she said.

Bali moved the discussion in a different direction, focusing on the problems that foreign students and Arab and Muslim students have faced in the past few months.

"When we position ourselves along ethnic lines, the integrity of international students is compromised in some way," Bali said.

Muslim-Americans face a "climate of intimidation," she said.

Ferszt, who serves as a mediator in the Ombuds office, spoke about the importance of being polite — and about the difference between surface civility and genuine respect for other people.

"People are almost universally polite, courteous. It's part of the [Princeton] culture," she said. She said that there was still a tendency to categorize people on campus by race, religion or economic class.

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Parker, who works in mail services in addition to being union local president, said the labor movement has always been intimately related to civil rights.

Diamond echoed the statements of several previous speakers, especially focusing on Ferszt's idea of the difference between politeness and true civility and respect.

He said people on campus tend to be polite, but that is not enough. "We're kidding ourselves," he said. "It's all on the surface."

The discussion that ensued touched on several of the issues brought up by the speakers. The audience was composed primarily of University employees, both faculty and staff, with a few undergraduates and graduate students. Those in attendance included representatives of several campus constituencies, from high-level administrators and tenured professors to dining services employees and health services staff.

The Ombuds office provides neutral and confidential mediation and conflict resolution services to members of the University community. It also makes recommendations to the president on issues of diversity and tolerance that concern the campus.