Diversity Down South at Darden
Lest you be tempted to chalk up the diversity-driven initiatives as merely a Bay Area phenomenon, a quick look to the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business dispels that notion. Darden earlier this month hosted its annual Diversity Week, from October 3rd to 7th, designed to celebrate inclusion while getting people to engage in deeper discussion around issues of diversity and equality.
“Every Darden student has a unique identity and story to tell,” second-year MBA student Sydney Hartsock, Darden Student Association (DSA) vice president of diversity, said in an article on the school’s website. “Diversity Week was an opportunity to appreciate what each of us brings to the community and to learn more about how diversity impacts us here at Darden and in our lives and careers.”
After a kick-off First Coffee—a Darden weekly tradition—sponsored by first-year student diversity representatives and the DSA, the week’s events continued with a community dialogue entitled “Kaepernick, the National Anthem and Beyond” led by the school’s Black Business Student Forum and the DSA. The hour-long event drew roughly 100 students and a range of views on recent celebrity protests against injustice and inequality in the United States and led to a wider discussion of how students can come together to make a difference, the school reports.
The next day, hundreds of Darden students, faculty and staff gathered on the steps of Saunders Hall wearing black to show solidarity in response to police shootings in Charlotte and Tulsa—part of a larger movement that spread across many business school campuses the same week. Many students also took part in a video explaining their personal motivations for wearing black.
Later the same day, Darden Professor Martin Davidson led a discussion based on research he has conducted on how to leverage difference. In particular, Davidson helped students consider ways to talk about diversity authentically, without getting tripped up trying too hard to be politically correct.
Additional events during the week included another First Coffee and a “fireside chat,” both hosted by Pride at Darden, a lunchtime discussion of religious views led by several of the school’s religious affinity groups and a session co-hosted by McKinsey & Co. and Darden’s Graduate Women in Business club on women in the workplace.
A Professor’s Social Media Comments Keep the Conversation Going
The very same week, comments made by an adjunct professor who teaches entrepreneurship at both Darden and UVA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) prompted official responses from the Darden School, the DSA and Darden’s Black Business Student Forum, reinforcing their commitment to diversity.
Lecturer Douglas Muir lambasted the Black Lives Matter movement on social media, comparing it to the Klu Klux Klan. Muir’s comments came in response to a Facebook post referencing an October 4th event at Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater entitled “Rooting Out Injustice,” which featured Black Lives Matter Co-founder Alicia Garza speaking about the topics of white privilege, the struggle of black Americans and the focus of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Muir’s comments—“Black lives matter is the biggest rasist [sic] organisation [sic] since the clan [sic]. Are you kidding me. Disgusting!!!”—drew immediate response from across the Charlottesville community, including from City Councilor Wes Bellamy.
“How can you compare people standing up for justice to the KKK, who have unapologetically hung many African Americans?” Bellamy wrote on Twitter. “They are outright and blatantly racist, and when you look at Black Lives Matter, that’s white people, Latino people, Asian people and young and old people. It’s a collective call to bring people together to face systemic oppression.”
The Darden community quickly issued its own responses. An official statement from the school read, “The personal comments made by University of Virginia adjunct lecturer Doug Muir on his personal social media accounts do not in any way represent the viewpoint or values of the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.” It went on to cite the very Diversity Week events outlined above as evidence of the school’s commitment to dialogue about the impact of diversity on the learning community. “At Darden, we embrace the challenging discussions surrounding diversity, equality and justice that face our society because it is our mission to develop leaders who are prepared to lead responsibly through the most difficult issues confronting business and the world,” the statement read.
Darden’s Black Business Student Forum—a student club bringing together past, present and prospective African-American Darden MBA students—also issued a statement pointing to the events of Diversity Week as testament to the school’s inclusive community.
“This week was a monumental week for diversity at Darden. Not only did we have great attendance at our event on racial injustice, but we also stood together as One Darden and wore black to represent solidarity. This progress will not be overshadowed and discredited by the comments of one faculty member. The kind of inaccurate and offensive comments made by Mr. Muir threaten to damage the inclusive community that the student body, alumni, Dean Beardsley, and the faculty and staff of Darden have worked hard to foster.”
The DSA, for its part, called on UVA and Darden to take action. “The values of our community exist in striking opposition to Doug Muir’s stance. We vehemently disagree with his statement and we call upon the University of Virginia and the Darden School of Business to respond swiftly to uphold our values of inclusion, equality, and a dedication to truth and accuracy.”
SEAS issued its own statement distancing itself from Muir’s comments, adding that the lecturer had volunteered to take a leave from his position. The following week, Muir issued a statement of his own, apologizing for his initial comments. “I was wrong in my comparison and want to offer my profound apologies for my words,” he wrote. “To my students, the University of Virginia, the citizens of Charlottesville and the thousands of responders, I am truly sorry. I have been saddened by the pain it has caused this wonderful community.”
Muir, who also owns a restaurant in downtown Charlottesville, was scheduled to return to his classes this past Monday, promising to “take these hard lessons learned to heart.”
Darden’s Most Diverse Class to Keep the Dialogue Going
While the events of the past weeks suggest that there is still room for ongoing dialogue around issues of race and diversity at Darden—and indeed, across the nation—this year’s incoming class of MBA students is the most diverse in the school’s history, which promises to help ensure that the conversations continue.
Greeting the incoming class back in August, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions Sara Neher rattled off a string of notable statistic about the assembled group. The Class of 2018 is 39 percent women, topping the Class of 2017’s 35 percent. And minority students make up 20 percent of the incoming class, another record. “All of this makes you the most diverse class Darden has ever had in its history,” Neher said. The audience met her remarks with cheers.
