{"id":138,"date":"2014-10-04T10:06:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-04T17:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2024-05-12T13:19:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T20:19:27","slug":"university-president-says-school-is-too-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"University President says school is too white"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/embed><\/center>BELLINGHAM, WASH. \u2014 Western Washington University President Bruce Shepard says he’s being deliberately provocative when he says the university is too white. The lack of diversity on college campuses a national crisis, he says.<\/p>\n

Most of the email and calls he receives on the issue support diversity but some critics use hate language and racial epithets, said Shepard, who is white.<\/p>\n

In a convocation speech, referring to the racial make-up of the school, Shepard said, “…if in decades ahead, we are as white as we are today, we will have failed as a university.” He made a similar comment in a blog posting.<\/p>\n

On the university’s website, he posed the question, “How do we make sure that in future years we are not as white as we are today?”<\/p>\n

Conservative blogs, publications and commentators have picked up on the story on campusreform.org, said Caleb Bonham, editor-in-chief of the media organization for conservative college students.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s being very insensitive to how people are perceived based on the color of their skin,” Bonham said.<\/p>\n

Shepard makes no apologies.<\/p>\n

“I needed to provoke some attention,” he said. “It’s really important to understand the issue facing all of American higher education and that is, our country is changing.”<\/p>\n

WWU must attract minority students to remain competitive, economically healthy, and because it’s the right thing to do, Shepard said.<\/p>\n

Shepard says he welcomes a vigorous and respectful debate on the issue of diversity.<\/p>\n

The university in Bellingham, in northwest Washington, has about 15,000 students.<\/p>\n

<a href=”http:\/\/thinkinclusion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/wwu.jpg”><img class=”size-medium wp-image-300 aligncenter” src=”http:\/\/thinkinclusion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/wwu-300×221.jpg” alt=”wwu” width=”300″ height=”221″ \/><\/a><\/p>\n

Western Washington University President Bruce Shepard’s comments about the racial makeup of his university are sparking debate over diversity on college campuses nationwide, Seattle TV station KOMO is reporting.<\/p>\n

In a convocation speech, Shepard said ” … if in decades ahead, we are as white as we are today, we will have failed as a university.” He expressed similar sentiments in a blog posting.<\/p>\n

Conservative bloggers and commentators have since picked up on a story about the comments on campusreform.org, a media organization for conservative college students.<\/p>\n

Shepard, who is a longtime champion of efforts to attract more minority students to WWU, is making no apologies over his statements.<\/p>\n

He called the lack of diversity on college campuses a national crisis and says that WWU must attract more minority students to remain competitive and economically healthy. Plus, it’s the right thing to do, he said.<\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BELLINGHAM, WASH. \u2014 Western Washington University President Bruce Shepard says he’s being deliberately provocative when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,16,14,13,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civil-protest","category-equal-opportunity","category-featured","category-first-amendment-rights","category-music","category-social-change","wpcat-4-id","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-16-id","wpcat-14-id","wpcat-13-id","wpcat-17-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historeplay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}