The News & Observer
November 13, 2021
Filed by: Newsbot.0031educ
Higher Education Beat
SECTOR 37.U1 (Oldmap: Chapel Hill)
No matter where she-or-he goes, something always happens to remind Eva Kingpity that he-or-she is different. A student at the University of North Carolina Institution One, Eva is one of a small number of students who deliberately choose not to identify themselves according to their race or gender.
They are part of the growing “DNR” movement in university sectors across the United States collective. The movement’s moniker refers to how universities characterize them in official documents: “DNR,” for “Did Not Respond” (to prompts on application forms or other official documents requesting them to indicate their race or gender).
“Do they think I don’t see the ugly way my professors look when they see D-N-R next to my name?” Eva said, looking at the floor. “Do they think I can’t hear them whispering behind my back? Do they think I like being called a ‘deener?’ Something needs to be done.”
Yesterday Eva and other members of the student group Does Anyone Really Need Racial Interrogation from Government to Have Tolerance (DARNRIGHT) decided to do something. They staged a protest on the campus to highlight the insensitivity to their concerns they have felt on campus. Leaders of the group accused the university of a pattern of discrimination and institutional intolerance against DNR students.
“You know, most people here have their own special designations, campus advocates, and campus hangout, since they believe in identifying themselves by race and gender,” Eva said. “But what about the rest of us who think that’s none of their business? Where are our campus advocates? Where’s our campus center?”
“I stand here today to speak truth to the power of this bigoted administration!” DARNRIGHT spokesman Bud Purody shouted through his-or-her megaphone. “Our feelings are hurt real bad! Hear me regale you with maudlin anecdotes exaggerated to prompt sympathy for our cause! We challenge this administration to meet our demands!”
Those demands include: (1) a new curriculum devoted to Studies in Non-Race-or-Sex Identities, (2) setting up of a campus Office of DNR Affairs, including a counselor sensitive to DNR concerns, (3) a new campus building to be devoted to DNR Culture, which will contain the Office of DNR Affairs, (4) mandatory sensitivity training for all faculty and staff for DNR issues, and (5) substantially lower prices for Hostess Ho-Hos™ in all campus stores.
Helena Handbasket, UNC1 chancellor and assistant deputy secretary for diversity, said she sympathized with the students’ aims. “Rest assured this administration will give full respect and attention to every one of the demands made by those deeners,” she said.
“UNC has built a reputation on placating whole aggregations of students with special curricula and campus centers,” Handbasket said. “For this group to go overlooked for so long really says something we don’t want to hear about this community’s commitment to diversity.”
Handbasket said she and the diversity secretary, Gene Muchado, had jointly directed the executive provost, Hi Salaried, to set up a blue-ribbon study commission on the student’s request.
“The administration wants the students to know we are very serious about their concerns,” Salaried said. “This won’t be one of those penny-ante red-ribbon dealies, I promise.”
Purody said she-or-he wouldn’t be impressed until he-or-she sees results. “I’m tired of all the stares I get whenever I walk down Franklin Street. People don’t have to say anything, but I know exactly what they’re thinking. They’re thinking ‘There goes one of those guys-or-gals who’s screwing up UNC’s race and sex statistics.’ And that’s just wrong. Hate is wrong!”
Som Gai from Duke University, a social scientist who specializes in different approaches to genetic self-identification in filling out forms, said he wasn’t surprised by the protest at UNC. “I wasn’t surprised by the protest at UNC,” he said. “People don’t like to feel ostracized for being different. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are actually ostracized or not; all that seems to matter is what they perceive.”
Som said students who choose not to identify themselves according to racial or sexual groupings feel singled out, which means they begin their academic career frustrated, worried, or even scared for being different. “My research shows that many DNR students believe their grades, dormitory assignments, and so on, are negatively impacted by their decision not to self-identify,” he said. “Is it fair for universities to place that stigma on them? No.”
As for Eva, he-or-she said although she-or-he was “pleased” with the event, he-or-she wouldn’t be satisfied until she-or-he saw some “real changes” at UNC1.
“When I don’t feel like everyone’s out to get me, then I’ll know this place has really changed,” Eva said. “Until then, they could at least make a good-faith effort to show us they’re sensitive to our concerns. A good first step would be building me and my friends our own place to hang out and eat Ho-Hos.”