Franciscan value of diversity ignored

Columbus Day and the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. are both federal holidays. However, at St. Bonaventure, Columbus Day just so happens to fall within our midterm break. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, on the other hand, does not fit within any scheduled break, as it is usually the second Monday of the spring semester.

“The fact that our midterm break falls over Columbus Day weekend is not in observance of Columbus Day. It is the most academically sound time for there to be a break in the term,” Emily Sinsabaugh, vice president for university relations, said.

So the university can “accidentally” give us a day off for a Catholic explorer who aided in the systematic destruction of millions of Native Americans, but they can’t purposely give us one off for a Protestant man who advocated and died for the cause of equal rights for all?

St. Bonaventure University is one of 24 schools in the Association of Franciscan Colleges and Universities. These schools follow the values of St. Francis, including love and respect for one another and for all creation, according to the organization’s website. Looking through each institution’s calendar, I found 15 out of the 24 take Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, including Siena College and Hilbert College.

The fact that Bonaventure is not included in this list is appalling. The university says it believes in the Franciscan ideal of diversity and the beauty of the individual, yet we are one of the Franciscan universities that do not take a day off for the man who continually pushed that ideal forward. That is a horrible contradiction.

Students from St. Bonaventure’s Black Student Union (BSU) also say they are frustrated with this contradiction in the university’s so-called diversity and “Thisness” campaign, especially being on a predominantly white campus.

“If it were not for the strides that Dr. King made, we probably would not be attending a ‘diverse’ school,” Brandi Mapson, a sophomore sociology major, said. “He is a part of my history as an African-American woman, and he matters just as much as anyone else.”

BSU president and senior sociology major Gladys Ofori illustrated the importance of recognizing this holiday for African-American students on campus and why we should all push for further recognition of King.

“He strived to make us all equal by making everyone aware that people of color matter,” Ofori said. “St. Bonaventure University believes in and stresses diversity, and what better way to practice what they preach then by helping to spread awareness of MLK day on the Bonaventure campus and also in Olean. We can start now by honoring a man who changed our nation and advocated for me, and others like me, to sit in class alongside my white peers and get the same education given to them.”

On the Diversity at SBU page on the university’s website, it says that St. Francis of Assisi went on a mission to the hostile camp of Malik-al-Kamil, Sultan of Egypt, to convert the Sultan to Christianity. But the two men parted with a new respect for each other’s faith and culture. The diversity page stresses that St. Bonaventure University strives to walk in the footprints of St. Francis by cultivating a campus-wide mission for multiculturalism.

The university is failing in this mission. They take a day off for exploitative Columbus and reject the chance to celebrate King, who, like St. Francis, led a movement of service and love for every person.

The school needs to take Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off not to give students another day to relax, but to show respect for the Bonnies of different races and for a man who understood the beauty of a world where all races and ethnicities can come together.

If the university continues to believe in the power of diversity and interacting with different individuals, they need to show that they are willing to step up and honor those who have fought for it, not those who have tried to end it.