MSU creates opportunities to reduce the barriers that come with students of all different races, said Paulette Granberry Russell, director of the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives.

“(In terms of) the speech of 1963 in the context of 2011, there is a big difference,” she said. “However, the issue (of race) still exists. Are we satisfied? Should we, as a country, be expected to be satisfied? No. No one should be when these inequalities exist. We’re still working to make that dream a reality. There are things that have changed for the better, and like King we have to be vigilant. We’re not there yet.”

Today, students live in a society that still is segregated, said Ruben Martinez, director of the Julian Samora Research Institute.
According to the 2010 census, black segregation has decreased in the last decade, but segregation still exists in Michigan, with Detroit ranked as one of the top three most segregated cities in the nation.

As a country and a university, we have come a long way, but the fight will never end, prenursing freshman Emily Uhlig said.

“MSU is definitely a diverse campus,” she said. “People have to be accepting to just be here, but I don’t think a holiday really does any justice because there is just that one day and then we forget.”
According to the Office of Planning and Budgets’ website, about 70 percent of MSU’s students are Caucasian, but some students such as Nic Miller, a no-preference freshman, still were surprised by the number of international students on campus.

“I’ve traveled a lot and I’m not coming from a rural town, but when you actually get to talk to (minority and international students) you realize how different you are and then you appreciate it,” Miller said.

Even with MSU being a diverse university, it still has its issues, campus leaders said. With residence halls such as West Circle nicknamed “White Circle,” Brody as the “Bro-jects” and Hubbard Hall as “the hall that all the black people live in,” these labels could be detrimental, even when subtle, Martinez said.

“These labels are used in an informal way, used by students to address reality,” he said. “Yes, it’s important to allow (students) to have a choice where they live, but to label these places such as the “Bro-jects” … one begins to think of them in a negative way, and treat the people in a negative way.”

Granberry Russell said one of the main aims of her office is education.

“I don’t think any of us should be expected to endure anything hurtful, but you don’t want to close off someone’s opportunity to learn,” she said. “The person has to open themselves up to the ability to learn and to the criticisms, that’s the struggle.”

Although students don’t all agree about when discrimination will come to an end, Martinez said it will be when the word “minority” no longer exists.

“When society is free of minorities,” he said. “When we de-minoritize minorities, that’s when enough is enough. When we still see a society that has educational disparities, segregated living spaces, when we stop seeing those things, enough is enough.”

For Nicholas Dansby, an urban planning and landscape senior, it is an issue of acknowledging truth.

“Enough will be enough when we can all agree and acknowledge the truth,” he said. “People may have knowledge of the truth in their subconscious but may not want to admit it. Our problems are deeper than they need to be, it’s hatred. We need to get to the root.”