Tunnel sheds light on barriers

Photo by Courtney Wittmann
Arts & Science sophomore Marco Martino and Arts & Science
senior Laura Hanley pause in the sexual orientation room to reflect on photographs depicting various forms of sexual
oppression.

By KATE PRASSE
Reporter

“If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are more comfortable than 75 percent of the people in the world.”

Sometimes the truth hurts.

This fact greeted students in the first room of the Tunnel of Oppression, a program sponsored by the department of Residence Life. The program is an attempt to raise awareness of oppression in the Creighton community.

“I want it to be an educational experience for them [students],” said Dusten Crichton, acting assistant director of Residence Life.

Crichton explained that the resident advisers put together the project for the second year in a row. There were about 300 people who attended the event last year, and Crichton said he hopes that they will exceed that number this year.

The Tunnel of Oppression took place on Wednesday and Thursday and consisted of five rooms in the Deglman multipurpose room. A guide took students on a tour of the rooms, which highlighted different forms of oppression.

Graphic quotes, pictures, videos and a few activities consumed the walls.

The sexual orientation room featured a tape-recording that repeated phrases students hear every day and perhaps never think twice about. Business junior Jessica Boettcher said she felt most disturbed by that aspect of the tunnel.

“When I heard the phrase ‘this test is gay,’ it just made me cringe,” she said. “That term is just thrown about so freely. You hear it over and over again.”

That room also presented a contrast of love and hate. One side of the room displayed images of couples of all sexual orientations in loving embraces. Across from love was the display of hate, which listed the five levels of prejudice: avoidance, verbal, discrimination, violence and murder.

Also on the wall were stories of hate crimes, including the Matthew Shepard story and a story of Creighton’s recent visitors, the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members protested “The Laramie Project” last month because they said the play was “fag propaganda.”

The gender room focused largely on body image. “What do you see?” was plastered over the faces of numerous people photographed in just their underwear. There was also a mock-up of a Facebook profile with wall-postings and groups from actual Creighton students’ pages. These included groups like, “Jays for hot girls,” “top 10 reasons why beer is better than women” and “it’s 1:15 a.m. and (Creighton Doe) is looking for some tail.”

The last room before the final reflection was the Room of Action. Facts about Creighton and its attempt to limit oppression were displayed around the room.

As a representation of a Jesuit university, the room showed that Creighton had many firsts. Creighton had the first woman to attend any Jesuit college in 1892, when Kate Drake entered the Creighton University Medical Center. In 1962, Creighton was the first Jesuit college to host an interfaith dialogue between the Jewish and Catholic traditions. Creighton also was the first Jesuit school and the first school in Nebraska to offer a Native American studies program.

Students were encouraged to enter the chapel in Deglman to reflect on the experience they felt in the tunnel.

The reflection leaders included professors and Jesuits. There were mirrors available for students to sign as part of the reflection. The mirrors will hang in the residence halls as a permanent reminder to love and be open to all people.

Mary Ensz, Arts & Sciences sophomore and member of the Gay-Straight Alliance, was one of the tour guides. She said she hopes students will learn that through education.

“I want students mostly just to recognize that there is still such a long way we have to come. Oppression is just so present each day,” she said. “Education can do so much.”

Boettcher said she felt the tunnel experience helped those who visited understand that it must be very difficult for the underrepresented students at Creighton.

“A minority on our campus probably goes through so much everyday,” Boettcher said. “I think it would just be so hard on this campus.”

The organizers of the event hope the Tunnel of Oppression will make an impact.

“Go in there and expect to not have all the answers,” said Ensz said. “Think of what wasn’t represented. We just sort of hit the tip of the iceberg — to sound completely cliché.”