Unmelting pot? Diversity a problem at UW-Madison
0:23 AM 4/11/04
Karen Rivedal Wisconsin State Journal

Spurred by a bigot's beer bottle, UW-Madison's already tiny contingent of Native American students shrank by one last month.

In mid-March, 18-year-old freshman Kyle Aragon quit school and returned home to New Mexico, shaken by a series of racially motivated incidents including an attack in February outside a bar on University Avenue that left him with stitches above one eye, according to his friends and university officials.

For UW-Madison, where officials are working hard to create a more welcoming attitude toward racial minorities and to improve diversity on the mostly white campus, what happened to Aragon was a big setback. UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley met with Aragon, a promising pre-engineering major, to try to convince him to stay.

But his mind was made up, Wiley said. And Bernice Durand, UW-Madison's associate vice chancellor for diversity and climate, said she didn't blame Aragon for leaving.

"A student who's had a hate crime committed against him is justified in leaving the campus," she said. "It's very sad."

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