Housing Services Office Staff Diversity

Diversity One of the main values upheld at the Ohio State University Housing Services office is diversity. However, the full-time staff lacks diversity, the housing contract lacks inclusive language, and the office space lacks accessibility. The lack of diversity amongst the full-time employees is problematic because it perpetuates the idea that marginalized individuals are ill-suited for or incapable of doing this job. While there are policies in place that do not allow a higher education organization discriminate against an individual’s identities, such as race, ethnicity, ability, and age, there are other ways to perpetuate exclusivity and discrimination.
For example, when the office was looking to hire an individual, they only promoted
Because the Housing Services office offer a two-fold identity option to students now, it is as if they patted themselves on the back and never second questioned themselves about the inclusivity of the language. Although only two student staff members have questioned the use of other, it is nonetheless still problematic and should be addressed. To better understand why this organizations believe they are being inclusive can best described using Joan Acker’s article, Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, Race, in Organizations (2006). They state, “Body differences provide clues to the appropriate assumptions, followed by appropriate behavior. What is “appropriate” varies, of course, in relation to the situation, the organizational culture and history, and the standpoints of the people judging appropriateness” (451). Acker also mentions the “visibility of inequalities” and how “dominant groups see inequality as existing somewhere else, not where they are” (Acker, 452). What can be taken away from Acker is that individuals within the dominant group, which would be cisgender individuals, do not see an issue with the incomprehensive language because of the organizational culture and their positionality. While the organization strives to be gender non-conforming friendly, for instance, it can only be as open-minded and aware as the employees that work there. If the employees are not exposed to diversity training about the issue and they are not receiving this information anywhere else outside of the organization, it makes it difficult for there to be organizational change. For example, members of the organization continuously use the wrong pronouns to describe the transgender student employee. While it might be new for individuals to use inclusive language, it does not mean that it should go without being