Racial self-segregation divides campus, society

On a Thursday or a Saturday night at the 'Street,' University students are likely to run into an eclectic selection of classmates, teammates and acquaintances. What they are not likely to encounter, however, is a large number of minorities.

Despite minority admissions that have grown steadily in the past two years, the number of minorities who join eating clubs remains small.

Other signs of segregation at the University are not as easily quantifiable but are just as obvious. A walk through Frist Campus Center, for example, reveals tables of students divided along racial lines. The USG Minority Issues Report released last year cited the lack of social interaction between minorities and non-minorities, noting that the University presented a poor environment for minorities. "According to many minority students, they chose Princeton not because of its race relations on campus, but in spite of it," the report said.

Segregation, of course, is not restricted to the University. The same de facto segregation that occurs on campus has been a consistent feature in American society for decades. Despite the fall of legal barriers to integration, racial groups remain highly segregated.

Residential segregation for blacks is the highest among all ethnic groups and has remained constant for the past 30 years, according to psychology professor Susan Fiske. Neighborhoods often are comprised of either minorities or non-minorities, but seldom contain racial groups in proportion to their numbers in the general population.

Socioeconomic factors can contribute to the problem, but segregation also results from voluntary choices. One of the causes of self-segregation may be the lack of comfort people feel when they are around different racial groups.

"People tend to associate with people they feel comfortable with and who are of the same kind," sociology professor Patricia Fernandez-Kelly said.

As a result, they form "comfort zones" in which they interact mostly with others like themselves. Moreover, members of groups form stereotypes about the groups to which they do not belong. "People operate on the basis of stereotypes about the outgroup [those not in their group] because it is cognitively and socially convenient," Fiske said in an e-mail. These stereotypes can contribute to a desire to associate with members of one's own group. Once such segregation exists, the status quo may become difficult to change.

"People who are not the targets of prejudice often have no investment in examining the costs of segregation," Fiske said. "Targets may or may not want to deal with the personal and political costs of tackling segregation."

The fact that such segregation persists at Princeton, however, is surprising. The number of minorities on campus has been rising gradually, and many aspects of University life are designed to counteract segregation.

"The first thing that the University does is to create residential colleges where students are assigned to live in pretty heterogeneous settings," Vice President of Campus Life Janet Dickerson said. "The residential colleges are the first and most powerful counter to the tendency of students to group into 'comfort zones'."

One problem with this approach, though, may be that simply placing racial groups in proximity to each other is not enough to remove racial barriers.

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"The assumption is that sharing a physical space will lead to some kind of interaction, but what is missing here is some understanding of the defensiveness or provocativeness of individual belonging," Fernandez-Kelly said.

"My impression is that African American students, although capable and competent, feel defensive of their ego and self-esteem," she added.

White students may feel guilty or uncomfortable about the issue and do not want to seem pushy or pretentious, Fernandez-Kelly said.

Other institutional factors may contribute to segregation at Princeton. The Minority Issues Report cited the dominance of the eating clubs in the University social scene as one cause of segregation.

The report quoted one student as saying, "The 'Street' does little more than foster a sense of elitism and social segregation. In their bi-weekly drunken state, most students fail to truly see and be willing to counteract this crucial problem of social life at Princeton."

Salih Eissa '03, president of the Black Students Union, agreed that some minority students find the Street alienating. Many black students join eating clubs, but then drop out after a few weeks or a year, he said.

"They say, 'I don't want to pay for the alcohol, I don't know that many people and it's not that inviting of an environment,'" Eissa said.

Eissa said that the BSU spends a lot of money and effort putting on social events that normally take place on the Street for non-minority students.

"It's something that the organization shouldn't have to do but it's something we end up doing," he said.

Both Eissa and the Minority Issues Report mentioned the need for more diverse social options, especially ones that play different kinds of music and do not emphasize alcohol.

Sam Todd '04, co-chair of the USG Minority Issues Action Committee, suggested another way to reduce segregation.

"There really is a responsibility of the majority to understand what it is to be majority and, in doing so, to try to understand how minorities feel and to make sure minorities don't feel left out," Todd said.

He stressed the importance of diversity in a college education.

"We come to this University to learn not only from our classes but also from each other. To feel that you don't have the ability to talk to someone or to learn from someone about their experiences being in a different racial or religious group is really a loss to your education," Todd said.

Dickerson, on the other hand, expressed a more long-term view.

"If we are going to have a truly global world — which is built on the basis of respect and understanding and not just military might — we need to have people who understand . . . and who can walk in the shoes of others whose lives and backgrounds might be different from theirs," she said.