Most are aware that Wash U has a diversity/representation problem. What fewer people know is how our treasury makes the problem worse. When you have a treasury that is mostly white or generally unconcerned with representation, you get several issues:
- Events/activities that cater to marginalized identities are appraised/assigned a monetary value by mostly-white business school students who aren't necessarily the most “down” aka (socially conscious).
- Groups appealing for such events/activities end up competing with each other for funding as mediated by the mostly-white treasury.
- Priority is necessarily given to events that benefit Wash U's disproportionately white campus rather than those marginalized identities.
In a way, it's an analogy to the “why do we need a BET? TV is for everyone!” sentiment—without deliberate investment in creating space for marginalized identities, the inevitable result is that the dominant stays dominant. In summary, Wash U's mostly-white [insert other dominant identities] treasury preferences programming that mostly benefits the campus's white [insert other dominant identities] majority.
Here are some examples:
Instead of getting money for welcome activities for incoming muslim students, the Muslim Students Association got full funding for an event titled “Fried Chicken Fridays.”
ALAS got fully funded for an empanada-eating contest after having been denied adequate funding for Latino Heritage Week.
Countless other cultural/social/identity-based groups have reported being belittled by a treasury that has consistently made inappropriate assumptions about what constitutes “enough diversity.”
But this isn't an indictment of our treasury—it's not fair to think of them as a malicious body bent on silencing students. This is first and foremost a warning to how treasury tends to work. And secondly, a call to action to push for more investment in programming that is BY AND FOR students of underrepresented backgrounds. To everyone: representation matters. To those who are underrepresented: you matter. And don't let anyone mediate your voice or your right to occupy space at this university.
But this isn't an indictment of our treasury—it's not fair to think of them as a malicious body bent on silencing students. This is first and foremost a warning to how treasury tends to work. And secondly, a call to action to push for more investment in programming that is BY AND FOR students of underrepresented backgrounds. To everyone: representation matters. To those who are underrepresented: you matter. And don't let anyone mediate your voice or your right to occupy space at this university.