One Third of Hamilton Students Dissatisfied with Treatment of Diversity on the Hill

By Michael Gregg and HamPoll Staff

 

In October 448 students took a HamPoll survey concerning racial and ethnic issues on the Hamilton campus. Participants were asked to identify their genders, class years, nationalities and racial or ethnic identities at the start of the survey, and the members of HamPoll correlated the answers to a set of questions on diversity with these characteristics. 

32% of the student body answered that issues of racial and ethnic diversity were insufficiently addressed in the classroom. Broken down, 60% of non-whites expressed dissatisfaction compared to 24% of whites. Among several possible strategies suggested to remedy this, non-whites in particular believed inviting speakers to talk about diversity and inflicting more severe punishment on transgressions would be most effective. Students in general also called for better peer education.

One question involved rating the importance of several characteristics in defining one’s personality, and the differences here were noticeable. 46% of non-whites said that their race was very important to them, compared to only 8% of whites. Other elements such as ethnicity, intelligence/education, family/friends, gender and religion did not vary appreciably, and sexual orientation did not vary at all.

97% of non-whites said issues of racial/ethnic diversity are important to their education at Hamilton, versus only 75% of whites. Similar differences occurred between males and females, with 85% of females finding importance in these issues and only 66% of males. Still, the overwhelming majority of the campus seems to believe these issues important to their education.

Non-whites were strongly more in favor of Hamilton adopting a requirement for each student to complete a course increasing awareness of diversity on the Hill. Among non-whites, 22% reported their opinions being ignored in class due to their ethnic or racial origin (compared to 4% of whites), and 37% reported the same offense occurred outside of class (compared to 12% of whites).

4% of students have seriously considered leaving Hamilton because their race or ethnicity was not respected. 4% of students likewise reported that they’d considered dropping a class for similar reasons. The vast majority of students have not had such doubts. 

Ever the romantics, 57% of Hamilton students have either dated or seriously considered dating students of other races or ethnicities, though non-whites were significantly more open on this front. 44% of students said that Hamilton overall is more diverse than their home communities.