Currently at Georgia Tech people define discrimination as “unwelcome verbal or physical conduct directed against any person or group, based upon race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or veteran status that has the purpose or effect of creating an offensive, demeaning, or intimidating environment for that person or group of persons.” At Tech they are trying to pass off that there is no longer discrimination,. The question that arises however is that if you focus so hard on trying to eliminate discrimination, are you yourself discriminating. At Georgia Tech there are so many different things currently in effect to make other races feel welcome, that they are practically broken up. There are groups and clubs and offices available for basically every single group imaginable, be it women, a certain race, people of a certain belief, or sexual preference, that it seems like the only people that don’t have their own group are white males.
OMED, Office of Minority Educational Development, is one of the biggest offices at Georgia Tech for minorities. The idea is that minorities have a place where they can go to get help, but why do they only allow this for minorities. If you are a caucasian, when you first come to Tech you don’t hear anything about OMED. In addition to having OMED, there are smaller groups for just about race. There is a group for Indians, one for American Americans, and every other ethnic group. There are even fraternities on campus that for African Americans.
Another area where discrimination is prominent is the greek community. Whenever a person wishes to joins a fraternity or sorority they must fit the mold that they set forward. If the fraternity or sorority finds that the person wishing to join isn’t as much of a jock, or as attractive, or even social standing. Another thing that stands out with fraternities is that there is discrimination by race. There are even a certain section in the greek system for African Americans and the other fraternities are mostly white. There is only one fraternity on campus that will accept either men or women so a case for gender discrimination can be fought as well.
People may say that Georgia Tech doesn’t have a problem with discrimination when it in fact does. In an effort to make sure that everyone is integrated and that nobody feels left out, they have formed an overwhelming number of cliques. It is true that everyone gets along with each other, but people tend to be around people that are more like them and stick close to them.
