‘No biggie’: The denial of oppression on campus

Abstract

Shifts in the demographics in North American colleges and universities over the past decades have created much more diverse and multiethnic campuses. Some praise these trends for creating more dynamic environments. However, not all are happy with the ‘infiltration’ of traditionally white, male enclaves, such that newcomers are met with hostility, even violence. In our campus hate crime study conducted at adjoining college and university campuses in Ontario, we found widespread awareness that minority students were frequent victims of hate crime and discrimination. In an interesting paradox, however, this did not translate into a parallel awareness that racism, or sexism, or homophobia were problems for the campus in question. In other words, while students may observe racist behaviour, they do not ‘see’ it — that is, they do not register the structured embeddedness of campus oppression.