"We are exploring ways to help prepare our faculty better to treat issues of [diversity] in the classroom," Carnesale said.
Kennedy School students agree that classroom study is an important part of the diversity issue. However, they argue that this objective should be part of a larger vision encompassing hiring practices, curriculum, attitude and commitment.
"If the school is only showing you one group's view, in the classroom or in the faculty, and you have to go out there and deal with all kinds of groups, then the school is doing you a disservice," says Gary Cunningham, a mid-career student at the Kennedy School.
"The Kennedy School is behind the times," he adds. "We are supposed to be the leader in issues like diversity."
Gay and Lesbian Issues
Though recent student activism has focused mainly on increasing the representation of racial minorities on the faculty, the recruitment of gay and lesbian professors is another item on the Coalition for Diversity's list of suggestions to the dean.
But Carnesale says that because minorities of sexual orientation do not fall under the affirmative action guidelines, he doesn't consider them to be "in the same category" as racial and sexual minorities.
"I do not feel an affirmative action obligation to discriminate in favor of gays and lesbians in faculty hiring," he says.
Students also point out that the administration has yet to develop case studies incorporating gay issues or to require organizations recruiting at the school's career services office to sign a statement of non-discrimination.
Gay and lesbian students say they will continue to press the administration on these issues and others like them. The Kennedy School Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Caucus recently joined a university-wide coalition of homosexual student groups.
During director Oliver Stone's visit earlier this month, gay and lesbian students also raised their voices. They charged that Stone's movie, JFK, equates homosexuality with evil by its overemphasis on and negative portrayal of the homosexuality of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie, two members of the alleged conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy '40.