Press Release for the 2006 Symposium

Response to U.S. News & World Report Article 

To: US News & World Report:

Your story, "Campus Racism Online" (Dec.31 online), accurately reflects how modern communication can exacerbate the increasingly sensitive issue of race relations on college campuses. As president of Whitman College, one of the schools included in your article, I experienced this first-hand after photos of two students who painted their bodies black appeared online on Facebook. The vitriolic e-mail exchange that followed only widened a wound at a school known for its sense of humanism and ethic of service. We said "Stop" to the rage that built at warp speed on the Internet. We sought understanding in person, face-to-face-students, faculty, administrators. The result was the transformative symposium reported in your story. We learned and healed through direct communication, respectful dialogue and critical assessment. In the process, we reminded ourselves that true communication is a felt experience that occurs in person, human to human, and not through an insidious flurry of keystrokes that fuels reaction, not reflection.

George Bridges, President
Whitman College