COLUMN: Centers for students bring bad with good

From mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99 From mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99Think your group has been oppressed or ignored by the University? Asian-American students apparently do. To solve the perceived problem, they are demanding a resource center of their very own. And why not? Penn, then, should be more than willing to finally give campus conservatives a student center of their own. Midwesterners are surely eligible as well. Those who don't think so must answer this: What exactly is the difference between the needs of Midwesterners and those of Asian Americans? Who qualifies for a resource center, and why? What are the functions of such centers? And what are their consequences? According to many students, Asian Americans deserve a resource center because they are a "minority" that has been ignored by Penn. Whatever a "minority" may be, it is difficult to imagine a definition that would include the 25 percent of Penn students who are Asian American. The idea that Asian Americans have been ignored -- students cite past discrimination, a lack of visibility and a shortage of mentors as evidence -- is equally dubious. For example, while Asian Americans did suffer oppression in years gone by, the students currently pushing for a center are not suggesting that discrimination persists. What's more, if visibility is the main criterion for getting a student center, many other groups on campus deserve one more than Asian Americans. Of course, proponents argue that all is not as well as it seems for Asian Americans on Penn's campus. Take our word for it, they say. Outsiders can't relate, they insist. But a balance needs to be struck between what Asian-American students think and what fair-minded outsiders perceive to be the case. And from the outside, it is awfully difficult to see just what is so hard about life at Penn for Asian Americans. Besides, even if problems did exist, no one has explained how a student center would solve them. True, vague notions of unity and heritage have been bandied about, but specifics are conspicuously absent. It makes little sense, for example, to claim that a center would help solve the mentoring problem. Penn may not have enough Asian-American professors, as students claim. But pouring money into the creation of a center would only funnel away funds that could otherwise be used to attract those professors. And even if a student center did succeed in addressing the problems perceived by the Asian-American community, past experience with student centers suggests that any benefits will come with problems, too. Take the Women's Center, for example. While the center serves some crucial functions, it has also generated extreme anger among many members of the Penn community. When the University announced in 1994 that the center would be relocated into a former fraternity house on Locust Walk, all sorts of protests erupted. Many students, male and female alike, labeled the center as exclusive and vehemently unwilling to accept any student that did not embrace its philosophies. The protesters would have been horrified to hear Elena DiLapi's comments when the center finally moved in 1996. "This used to be a danger zone for women," DiLapi proclaimed. "Women will no longer get hurt here." DiLapi's statements illustrate the ways in which centers designed to serve parts of the community can do as much harm as good if they needlessly aggravate other community members in the process. On the other end of the spectrum is DuBois College House. While not a student center per se, DuBois serves a similar purpose -- but it succeeds in celebrating African-American achievement without denigrating others. Through its functions, DuBois educates and reaches out to the entire Penn community. Every year, for example, DuBois puts on a "Souls of DuBois" conference celebrating the heritage of W.E.B. DuBois and other African Americans. But no matter how open DuBois is to students from all races and backgrounds, the house and its events still attract a largely African-American audience. As a result, instead of promoting unity throughout the campus, DuBois fosters segregation. And an Asian-American center would likely produce the same outcome. In the end, then, such attempts to become a greater part of the community only further isolate various groups from one another.