Carnesale's Challenge

The debate over diversity at the Kennedy School of Government is intensifying this year, as students have called upon newly-appointed Dean Albert Carnesale to initiate dramatic changes in the school's hiring practices and curriculum.

Members of the Kennedy School's Coalition for Diversity and several minority caucuses say they are looking to Carnesale for new leadership on diversity issues. They have also challenged the new dean, charging that he displayed less than a resounding commitment to diversity at a "Town Meeting" held at the school in November.

In response to that charge, Carnesale convened a second meeting in December, saying that his Kennedy School administration would "try to do better than we have in the past."

At that meeting, he said he accepts the responsibility for taking new initiatives in diversity.

At the two town meetings, and in a series of letters, students have called on Carnesale to formulate a concrete plan for increasing minority representation on the faculty, to include students formally in the hiring process and to include sexual orientation as a component of diversity.

Methods of Recruiting

Student activists have critized the search committee for minority faculty candidates, which was created by former Dean Robert D. Putnam. The committee's chair, Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning Jose Gomez-Ibanez, is on sabbatical this year.

Carnesale has reactivated the committee and will serve as temporary chair until Gomez-Ibanez returns next year. But students say they are worried the committee will act only in a limited capacity and may not fulfill its mission on even a minimal level.

"Some of the chairs for the search committee haven't even read the affirmative action plan," says first-year student David Medina, a member of the steering committee of the Coalition for Diversity.

Carnesale has already met with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., chair of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Department of Afro-American Studies, and with Visiting Professor Rodolfo de la Garza to discuss methods for identifying more minority candidates for faculty positions.

"Our primary means of doing that right now is networking," said Carnesale at the December Town Hall meeting. "Professor Gates and Professor de la Garza have been helping me to gather data on qualified Black and Hispanic candidates who may be recruited through the networking system."

"The usual networks don't help us find candidates from some minority groups," Carnesale said. "We need help finding ways to attract those people to the Kennedy School."

But such help does not include an official role for students in the faculty hiring process, Carnesale said at the December meeting. Though he said he welcomed their comments and suggestions, he stated, "A university is not democratic."

Diversity in the Classroom

In addition to efforts to hire more minority faculty members, Carnesale said he is working on increasing awareness of minority issues in the classroom. He said he is supporting the development of case studies dealing with questions of diversity.

"We are exploring ways to help prepare our faculty better to treat issues of [diversity] in the classroom," Carnesale said.

Kennedy School students agree that classroom study is an important part of the diversity issue. However, they argue that this objective should be part of a larger vision encompassing hiring practices, curriculum, attitude and commitment.

"If the school is only showing you one group's view, in the classroom or in the faculty, and you have to go out there and deal with all kinds of groups, then the school is doing you a disservice," says Gary Cunningham, a mid-career student at the Kennedy School.

"The Kennedy School is behind the times," he adds. "We are supposed to be the leader in issues like diversity."

Gay and Lesbian Issues

Though recent student activism has focused mainly on increasing the representation of racial minorities on the faculty, the recruitment of gay and lesbian professors is another item on the Coalition for Diversity's list of suggestions to the dean.

But Carnesale says that because minorities of sexual orientation do not fall under the affirmative action guidelines, he doesn't consider them to be "in the same category" as racial and sexual minorities.

"I do not feel an affirmative action obligation to discriminate in favor of gays and lesbians in faculty hiring," he says.

Students also point out that the administration has yet to develop case studies incorporating gay issues or to require organizations recruiting at the school's career services office to sign a statement of non-discrimination.

Gay and lesbian students say they will continue to press the administration on these issues and others like them. The Kennedy School Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Caucus recently joined a university-wide coalition of homosexual student groups.

During director Oliver Stone's visit earlier this month, gay and lesbian students also raised their voices. They charged that Stone's movie, JFK, equates homosexuality with evil by its overemphasis on and negative portrayal of the homosexuality of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie, two members of the alleged conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy '40.