Dear President Bacow,
I hope that when you receive this letter, you, along with your wife and family, find yourself in good health. I am writing to you for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I would like to apologize for the informal and impersonal form of this e-mail, but due to your busy schedule I have never been able to sit down with you and talk with you about these issues.
My name is Noris Chavarria. I am currently a sophomore and will be majoring in Spanish as well as anthropology. I consider myself active in the Latino community at Tufts, helping in programs such as the Latino Peer Advising as well as a member of the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), and will be starting an English as a Second Language Program for the Janitors.
I would like to address my biggest concern first, the lack of diversity on campus. To me, diversity means the interaction and development of friendships between different cultures, as well as a growing understanding and appreciation for the differences among us. However, I do not and have not witnessed this on campus as much as I would like to.
A key element in facilitating this process would be the enforcement of the right to free speech, guaranteed by the first amendment of the US Constitution - however, free speech that also guarantees other citizens the right to feel safe. This past academic semester has been one that has left an indelible mark on me. Not only have I been attacked as a minority, but also my peers have been attacked both as groups of minorities and as individuals.
Ariana Flores, Iris Halpern, and Carl Jackson have all been victims of what I view as maliciously degrading materials in publications sponsored by Tufts University. These materials base their assertions solely on blatant misrepresentations of race and gender. The integrity of the publication is called into question by the inclusion of such racist and sexist content. What worries and disturbs me most is the fact that the University allows this inappropriate behavior to continue. A university as diverse as Tufts claims to be should be more liberal, proceeding on a path of acceptance rather than one of divisive intolerance.
If you would like to see Tufts prosper culturally as I do, I challenge you to do something about this issue. I hope that my plea does not fall upon deaf ears, and I urge you to challenge yourself in your first year as president of the University. Perhaps, as I know that similar issues have come up at other universities, you would consider their handlings of the problems.
Please make it so that I don't have to live in fear of being the butt of someone else's jokes.Noris Chavarria is a sophomore majoring in Spanish and anthropology.
