Almost everyone has filled out at least one race or ethnicity form in their lives, and in most cases it does not cause any concern. But a recent petition started by a USC student aims to include a MENA racial category in USC forms such as the Common App.
Patricia Gerges, a senior studying industrial and systems engineering, started the campaign when she realized the lack of a MENA category and its affect on MENA identifying students who “will always be mislabeled, and unaccounted for.”
Patricia Gerges: “USC doesn’t have any official data on how many Middle Eastern students are on campus.” “That is a real tragedy because now how is the university going to use the money to allocate resources and see all this student population?”
Laurie Brand, a recent retiree as a USC Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Relations and Middle East Studies, explains why the two identities may have historically been homogenized.
Laurie Brand: “In part, some of it has to do with sort of the perceptions that people have of physical appearance. And this is particularly problematic, obviously, if we’re talking about elements of or episodes of discrimination or harassment or worse.”
Both individuals explained the necessity of a more distinguished subculture and networking system for Middle Eastern and North African students within the university:
Laurie Brand: “I think it’s very important that the university provides special services and understanding and a rubric for Muslim students, but that Muslim is not coincident with Middle East, North African.”
Gerges explained why the petition was so important to her, and how her position as a student at USC has aided in her cause:
Patricia Gerges: ”My goal with this petition is for us to have recognition and USC to officially recognize this on paper and then start to allocate resources, start to see what what we need.”
Gerges’ petition is available on change.org and has garnered more than half of the asked 500 signatures. You can find it under the title “Expand USC’s Racial Categories on the Common App and University Forms.”