Grant Walters (left) and Ashton Johson (right) discuss reactions
from their articles last spring. Walter's wrote a letter to the editor in
response to Johnson's article "Excuse me, but your privilege is in our way."
ZACHARY TAYLOR / THE DEPAUW
It all started with an article in The DePauw. On Wednesday afternoon, a series of events that began when DePauw students Ashton Johnson and Grant Walters both wrote pieces in The DePauw last spring, came full circle as the two participated in a discussion led by Professor Sandro Barros.
During the spring 2014 semester, then junior Ashton Johnson picked up an issue of The DePauw and read an article describing how students on DePauw University’s campus tend to segregate themselves by class, race, Greek affiliation and other factors. She agreed that this was happening, but did not agree with the author’s conclusion that there wasn’t anything the students could do about it. She had also had many minority students express their frustrations to her about being a minority at DePauw. In response, she wrote an editorial piece in The DePauw on Feb. 25, 2014, chronicling the DePauw experience of minority students and what she called the “Privilege Bubble,” a close companion to the much-referenced “DePauw Bubble.”
Her article was then picked up by the Huffington Post, an online news site and blog, by means of a DePauw alum. This created a buzz across the nation as well as on campus. Then sophomore Grant Walters read Johnson’s article both in the paper and online. He was concerned that her point-of-view was the only one from this campus being heard, and that it was portraying the school in a bad light compared to what he saw, so he wrote a letter to the editor of The DePauw. In his letter, he said that he hadn’t experienced or seen the “Privilege Bubble” Johnson mentioned.
Both Johnson and Walters received attention for their pieces by email, through social media and in person. Some were positive, some were negative. But what both felt was the most important response to their writings was that conversations were sparked. In the weeks following these pieces, several more students wrote editorial articles or letters to the editor for The DePauw on the issue.
After discussing their respective pieces, the two broadened the conversation to the campus climate surrounding minorities. Both praised the DePauw Dialogue, but agreed that there is work yet to be done.
“The words microagression and privilege were a part of my vocabulary before the dialogue, but they might not have been in other students’,” Johnson said. “Now that people have the words, they can better engage in meaningful conversations on the topic.”
This was not the first time that Johnson and Walters had sat down together to discuss their opinions. Walters spent the fall semester studying abroad in South Africa. While there, he heard about national events such as the happenings in Ferguson, Missouri, and their effect on campus and the conversations that were occurring here, including the planning for the DePauw Dialogue. This moved him to reach out to Johnson, and the two met for the first time in February. They called their conversation “civil and productive.”
“Though people may want to label us as enemies because of our differing opinions,” Walters siad. “Ashton never felt like my enemy.”
Professor Barros is orchestrating a symposium on minoritized populations that will be held Saturday. He considered Wednesday’s discussion part of the symposium, but it was held earlier to fit the participants’ schedules. Both valued this public discussion.
Walters called it “a way to see the past, present and future of the discussion of minority issues on this campus.”
Johnson hailed it as “showing how easy conversations can be, even with someone different than you.”
“We need to keep talking about these issues!” Barros said. “These students have such a love for this institution, we need to keep giving them the agency to express themselves openly. This is really what DePauw is all about.”