Funny, I would have expected UNC students to be more woke.
Last week The Daily Tar Heel editors chose to write a story about a UNC graduate student who did not get appointed to a town advisory board. The town receives many applications for a limited number of vacant advisory board seats, so applicants are more likely to be turned down than appointed. Periodically, we get a flurry of applications from undergrads or grad students who believe serving on a town board will make their resume stand out, or they are applying as part of a class assignment.
But last week, a grad student who did not get appointed to the Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board took umbrage because council members appointed someone who is completely dependent on public transit, instead of the grad student who rides his bike.
A little background on the makeup of the TCAB: It has very little turnover, and everyone on it is a serious cyclist. The recommendations that come from that board tend to be homogenous and focused on what’s best for bikes.
Because the best decisions come from groups that have members with different perspectives, council would like to add some diversity to boards — people who stand on different viewing platforms to look at an issue, so the group can get a more complete understanding of the problem and possible solutions.
But the UNC student expressed his hurt and frustration on Twitter, and apparently some council members responded, and before you know it, the situation becomes newsworthy.
It seems the tension comes from disagreement over what “diversity” means. The grad student, who identified himself on the application as black, objected to council members appointing the transit-dependent applicant, who described himself as white.
If we merely decorate our advisory boards with a sprinkling of people of color or ethnicities, we have not created a diverse board. Rather, we must pay attention to lived experience, career path, passions and outside-the-box ideas.
The DTH editorial board and the disappointed applicant are our future leaders. It troubled me that they seemed to focus only on appearances. Our leaders can’t make good decisions if they’re more concerned with how things look than on solving problems. Simply making our boards look like a Benetton ad (and note that Benetton’s diversity does not extend to people who are not physically fit) won’t necessarily give us the diversity we need.
— Nancy Oates
Josh Mayo
/ November 11, 2019Hi Nancy,
As the applicant you’re talking about, I’d like to counter some of the arguments you’ve made.
1 – Sure, most applications get turned down, but not most applications recommended by the advisory boards themselves. The TCAB assessed the various factors you mentioned.
2 – I’m not just a cyclist – I’m also an avid transit user. Not that consequential, but considering I read this on a bus, it made me chuckle.
3 – My frustration was not that Jack was named to the board – it was frustration from being very close to joining the board before members changed their votes, and frustration that members refused to vote on Heather Brutz’s nomination.
4 – I never brought up race – members of council who have overseen advisory board appointments brought it up.
5 – I have lived in Chapel Hill for the vast majority o f my life. I drive here, bike here, run here, walk here, and bus here. This was NOT about a resume – this is about wanting to help improve my home.
Plurimus
/ November 11, 2019Meanwhile, from a fun place called reality, where facts still matter… diversity ≠ necessarily equal to race. There are viewpoints other than back/white and wonder of wonder one does not hold all of the “wokeness” because they are a university grad student. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhaL6lXdkX4
Gerry
/ November 11, 2019Josh Mayo probably one of the best known Carolina students on campus and among Carolina sports fans both from his undergrad days 2013-2017, after which the Chapel Hill native left for two years after finishing his BA, returning this fall to start a masters program. He was the face of student basketball fans as an undergrad, and as mic man this fall for football. . https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=unDUjNGW_m4 and https://goheels.com/news/2019/11/4/football-extra-points-wake-up.aspx — I met him in 2014 and he was quite impressive in his interest in Chapel Hill politics too. He isn’t a resume builder applicant. It’s also pretty clear that word got out quickly last week about his rejection.
Fred Black
/ November 12, 2019Who on the Council made race an issue, as it sounds like Mr. Mayo didn’t.
Nancy Oates
/ November 13, 2019Fred, from the DTH article, it appears that the DTH reporter Elizabeth Egan, Gerry Cohen and Penny Rich brought race into the discussion. I don’t know whether there were any other tweets besides the ones shown in the DTH article: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2019/11/josh-mayo-transportation-board-1107.
Fred Black
/ November 14, 2019Nancy, those comments of Cohen and Rich were made after the Council’s vote. Your “If we merely decorate our advisory boards with a sprinkling of people of color or ethnicities” says a lot. “Decorate?” Really?
Nancy Oates
/ November 14, 2019Yes, the DTH story with comments by Cohen and Rich was written after council made the appointments. No council member made any comment about race. That insinuation came from the DTH story. That’s the point of my blog post.
Fred Black
/ November 14, 2019Well, Nancy, “to decorate” in my mind implies placing an unqualified person on a board just because of their color or ethnicity. I don’t see not being qualified at issue in the decision you wrote about. I wish you had chosen a better word.
David Schwartz
/ November 15, 2019As Nancy wrote, there are often more applicants than there are board seats, so somebody is going to be disappointed. If Josh feels a calling to serve the Town as an advisory board member he should keep applying, and to more than one board. I first applied to serve on a Town advisory board in 2014 and was not appointed. I applied in each of the subsequent four years to at least one advisory board, all without success. Finally, in the fall of 2018, I was appointed to serve on the Historic District Commission, which I now chair.
Terri
/ November 15, 2019The Indy story provides additional detail: https://indyweek.com/news/orange/chapel-hill-town-council-josh-mayo-diversity/?fbclid=IwAR3Q3CMs9wy4UuXLvyNEUZYOOnZzCkjoVdbM-I7arhSSOIZj0eHnPIL8NEY
“Decorate” was not just an inappropriate word. It was offensive and Fred shouldn’t be the only one to point that out.
Seems to me that the issue here is how the individual council members define diversity.
Nancy Oates
/ November 15, 2019Terri and Fred — I agree with you that “decorate” is an insulting way to make appointments, and that’s why I take umbrage with anyone who believes that’s how council should choose advisory board members. I have supported staff’s efforts to reach out to the community to get more people from all neighborhoods involved in town decision-making, so we aren’t making appointments only from among people who have some sort of “in” with a council member.
Fred Black
/ November 15, 2019OK, I’ve got it now. “Decorate” meant making appointments only from among people who have some sort of “in” with a council member. So if it wasn’t about race, why the “Beyond Benetton” title?
Plurimus
/ November 20, 2019Perhaps it was this 2014 opinion piece in the WaPo by Valerie Strauss? (I knew I had seen the reference before.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/18/the-real-meaning-of-diversity-beyond-the-benetton-ads/
Margaret G.
/ November 21, 2019OK, Boomer…
Jeez.
Plurimus
/ November 22, 2019OK Karen,,..
Jeez