Editorial: Involve all of Pittsburgh community in diversity efforts

If Pitt dedicates 2016-2017 to diversity and inclusion, the community should join in the celebration.

Last Wednesday at the monthly Senate Council meeting, the Senate Council Group on Diversity and Inclusion proposed four potential courses of action to make Pitt more diverse and inclusive, including making 2016-2017 the Year of Diversity.

While this effort will certainly advocate for diversity and inclusivity on campus, we need to make sure the same effort goes into teaching diversity and inclusivity in our high school classrooms and our city’s communities.

Not only is Pitt making a concerted effort in promoting diversity, but Mayor Bill Peduto is also aiming to diversify Pittsburgh by hiring what he considers the most diverse staff in city history, as well as welcoming immigrants with open arms.

But where does this leave our city’s youngest and most impressionable inhabitants?

Opening our classrooms to conversation about topics, such as race, helps students gain insight on diversity and how to approach race relations and communication in a globalized world. While Pitt students take part in the action, high school students should participate in workshops and learn beside us.

About three miles away from Pitt is City Charter High School, where teachers are implementing cultural literacy classes that draw on literature, history and current events in order to stimulate discussion about diversity and inclusion.

Not only is this essential for a healthy community, but it equips students who aspire to be doctors or lawyers, for example, to be better at their jobs through empathy training.  It teaches high schoolers how to socialize with people of other cultures respectfully, as well as appreciate and respect their own culture. Minority students may feel pressured to dispose of their cultural norms and behaviors to fit in with the prevalent order, and creating an environment accepting of all cultures through readings and activities valuing all types of cultural traditions teaches students to be mindful and respectful.

Similar initiatives have taken place in western Pennsylvania school districts, and, according to a study by Vanderbilt researchers Jason Grissom and Christopher Redding, many school districts are especially in need of diversity and inclusivion discussion and training because of implicit biases that exist in day-to-day class.

According to their study, teachers are half as likely to assign black students to gifted programs as white students, despite comparably high test scores. Black students taught by black teachers, however, were assigned to gifted programs at almost the same rate as white students.

Implicit biases often hinder progress for minorities in the classroom, but we can now prepare to discuss solutions.   

If the University votes to make 2016-2017 the Year of Diversity, Pitt should encourage local high school students who may otherwise not get a chance to participate in a large-scale diversity conversation to join us.

By allowing high school students to get involved in the initiative, we can also foster healthy relationships between the University and city residents.

With every generation of Pittsburghers by our side, we can bring our diversity aspirations to fruition.