GC Times Talk

An exclusive look inside the power and politics of college fraternities in America as they struggle to survive despite growing waves of criticism and outrage. College fraternity culture has never been more embattled. Once a mainstay of campus life, fraternities are now subject to withering criticism for reinforcing white male privilege and undermining the lasting social and economic value of a college education. No fraternity embodies this problem more than Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a national organization with more than 15,000 undergraduate brothers spread over 230 chapters nationwide. While SAE enrollment is still strong, it has been pilloried for what John Hechinger calls "the unholy trinity of fraternity life": racism, deadly drinking, and misogyny. Hazing rituals have killed ten undergraduates in its chapters since 2005, and, in 2015, a video of a racist chant breaking out among its Oklahoma University members went viral. That same year, SAE was singled out by a documentary on campus rape, The Hunting Ground. Yet despite these problems and others, SAE remains a large institution with strong ties to Wall Street and significant political reach. In True Gentlemen, Hechinger embarks on a deep investigation of SAE and fraternity culture generally, exposing the vast gulf between its founding ideals and the realities of its impact on colleges and the world at large. He shows how national fraternities are reacting to a slowly dawning new reality, and asks what the rest of us should do about it. Should we ban them outright, or will they only be driven underground? Can an institution this broken be saved? With rare access and skillful storytelling, Hechinger draws a fascinating and necessary portrait of an institution in deep need of reform, and makes a case for how it can happen.

The Cultural Diversity Advisory Group to the Media (CDAGM) is an independent voluntary group that seeks to ensure quality and diversity in TV, radio, newspapers and other print media. Formed in 1992 and self-funding, the CDAGM has consistently and repeatedly challenged unfair portrayal of members of ethnic minority groups as well as their lack of mainstream access and involvement. This thought-provoking book tells of the barriers to progress but also highlights the positive impact of the CDAGM in relation to institutions such as the BBC, ITV, Newsquest, Westminster Media Forum, DCMS (Department for Culture Media and Sport) and Parliamentary Select Committees. With its insights about media/press gate keeping and packed with materials concerning the ease and ingenuity with which legitimate concerns can be sincerely attended to or improperly deflected, Diversity in the Media is an invaluable handbook for everyone concerned with democracy, fairness and social inclusion - including programme makers, editors, journalists, practitioners, researchers, students and general readers. Diversity in the Media contains contributions and correspondence from and between a range of people with direct experience of the events described in this book, including Nigel Kay; Andy Griffee; Eve Turner; Peter Fincham; Michael Grade; Tim Daykin; Elaine Johnson; Robin Britton; John Ferrao; Ian Murray; Mary Venetia Genis; Di Bernstein; Don John; Yuri Layhe; Parvaneh Farid and Hazel Tan."

College and university administrators are increasingly called to confront the deeply entrenched racial inequities in higher education. To do so, corresponding attention must be given to historical and contemporary manifestations of whiteness in higher education and student affairs. This book bridges theoretical and practical considerations regarding the ways whiteness functions to underwrite racially hostile and unwelcoming campus communities for People of Color, all the while upholding the interests and values of white students, faculty, and staff. While higher education scholars and practitioners have long explored the role of race and racism in college and university contexts, rarely have they done so through a lens of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). Exploring such topics through the lens of CWS offers new opportunities to both examine white identities, attitudes, and ways of being, and to explicitly name how whiteness is embedded in environments that marginalize and oppress students, faculty, and staff of color. This book is especially concerned with naming the material consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color on college and university campuses in the United States. Part one of the book introduces theoretical ideas and concepts administrators, scholars, and activists might use to interrogate how whiteness functions on campus. Part two of the book explores practical considerations for how whiteness functions across campus spaces, including student leadership programs, fraternity and sorority life, faculty tenure and promotion, LGBTQ support services, and so forth.

Despite claims from pundits and politicians that we now live in a post-racial America, people seem to keep finding ways to talk about race--from celebrations of the inauguration of the first Black president to resurgent debates about police profiling, race and racism remain salient features of our world. When faced with fervent anti-immigration sentiments, record incarceration rates of Blacks and Latinos, and deepening socio-economic disparities, a new question has erupted in the last decade: What does being post-racial mean? The Post-Racial Mystique explores how a variety of media--the news, network television, and online, independent media--debate, define and deploy the term "post-racial" in their representations of American politics and society. Using examples from both mainstream and niche media--from prime-time television series to specialty Christian media and audience interactions on social media--Catherine Squires draws upon a variety of disciplines including communication studies, sociology, political science, and cultural studies in order to understand emergent strategies for framing post-racial America. She reveals the ways in which media texts cast U.S. history, re-imagine interpersonal relationships, employ statistics, and inventively redeploy other identity categories in a quest to formulate different ways of responding to race.