Word has continued to spread throughout campus regarding President Doti’s controversial remarks concerning the creation of a multicultural center on campus, which were made during a discrimination lawsuit against Chapman University. The lawsuit alleged that a former Chapman professor, Stephanie Dellande, was denied tenure simply because of her race.
According to Chapman’s newspaper The Panther, President Doti said, “I don’t feel it’s a good idea personally to ghettoize or create areas in the university that are focused on race or ethnicity.” In response to the incident, a group of Chapman students decided to create a new club on campus called the Multicultural Enterprise Club.
According to the club’s prime minister Haley Strickland, their mission is to “change the campus climate around diversity issues while organically changing the student body from within.” The club also wishes to promote a more positive dialogue surrounding diversity in an effort to ultimately create a more inclusive and safe space for the entire Chapman community.
Strickland says, “Our club isn’t about just race and culture alone; it’s about the diversity of identities that exist on campus such as socioeconomic class, disability status, etc. Our student body isn’t properly represented and all our voices aren’t necessarily heard. There’s not one place to look up this information so that’s why we wanted to start the club. That’s something that a multicultural center would resolve, but it doesn’t exist yet.”
Strickland invites anyone looking to get involved in the Multicultural Enterprise Club to contact her at multiculturalenterprise@gmail.com and to like their Facebook page.