Experiencing Diversity

My response to “An Inclusive Campus” (On the Campus, July 8) is that most students at Princeton — and other similar colleges — have never lived in a community with so much diversity. And sadly, they will never again live in such a community.

Even the most concerned and sensitive of those who have not been victimized by systemic discrimination have had little or no personal interactions with the victims. These disparate backgrounds give us something comparable to persons who have looked through different ends of a telescope. The one has seen graphic close-ups while the other has seen distant, small, unclear (insignificant?) images that might merit little attention.

It is, therefore, critical to use the telescope for what it was intended. Both sides might look in a mirror and form a campus version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as was done in South Africa when apartheid was abolished. Truth often begets pain, but it is the price of understanding and reconciliation. Of course, alumnae and alumni must be included because, in this effort, there is a need for both the vigor of youth and the wisdom of age.