“This is not who we are and cannot be tolerated.” These words were sent in an email from St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan, regarding the racist slur found on the sidewalk last November. While we may like to believe that it is not who we are, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we have a lot of work to do before we can claim that.

A couple weeks ago, a racist slur was found etched on a bulletin board of a resident adviser in Ireland Hall. Again, Sullivan responds with an email. However, the response is almost mechanic, with chunks of the message copied word-for-word from the email sent last year, like a mad lib for addressing racist incidents on campus. It begs the question: is St. Thomas truly looking to confront the issue and work toward change, or to cover it up as a few wrong students who supposedly do not represent who we are?

These are students of the university, and they felt comfortable enough with the St. Thomas culture to act this way. That in and of itself is a problem, which cannot be solved with a generic email reiterating our supposed values and morals that call us to act differently.

The following sentiments are stated word for word in both of Sullivan’s emails:

“As a Catholic university, we are committed to the fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching: the dignity of the human person and solidarity. Each of us is a creation of God, and our human dignity follows from our very existence. Human dignity is not dependent on race, creed, color, gender, religion or any other dimensions by which humans might distinguish themselves, and it is not bestowed by anyone other than God, our creator. Every human life is sacred. Our solidarity mandates that we are all part of one human family. We are called to be empathetic, and we cannot remain untouched by the suffering or injustice against any brother or sister anywhere on our planet, and certainly not within our own community.”

These statements are just as ineffective the second time around as they were the first. Had they been combined with actual steps to change the culture within St. Thomas that allows this, or at least acknowledge that this seems to be part of who we are– whether we all like it or not– then the message would have been fine. However, alone, the emails are seen to many as a bandage covering the real issue that may be too dangerous of a PR move to actually tackle.

This is not suggesting that Sullivan is responding alone or even that all of the blame is on the administration. We as a university need to acknowledge our flaws and respond in more than just a superficial way. An aggressive confrontation from all groups at St. Thomas about who we are and how we can work toward improving race relations is needed if we actually want structural change within our university.

Sam Miner can be reached at mine0034@stthomas.edu.