The inclusive Vincentian core of DePaul’s mission remains clouded by a white, non-LGBTQ+ dominated culture in the journalism department.

I first became aware of this during spring quarter of my freshman year when myself and a group of my friends decided to band together to create a campus magazine called DePaul Rogue solely devoted to uplifting the voices of minority, marginalized and multicultural groups on campus. We produced three issues before disbanding during spring quarter 2019.

There’s a lot about Rogue that I would do differently if I was to go back and do it all over, but I viewed it as a successful attempt at change. Based on my interactions with our officers and contributors, it was clear that, though imperfect, our publication filled a need for inclusivity within DePaul’s journalism program.

The idea initially stemmed from a collection of shared experiences from my gay-identifying self and others who felt that DePaul’s promised acceptance and embrace of diversity was not fulfilled in practice.

While this was happening, I was in a freshman communications class where my professor, who was not a member of the LGBTQ+ community, told me that it was “offensive” for me to use the word homosexual to describe myself. She never said what made it offensive, despite having given my reasoning for my personal comfort with the word.

I was new to DePaul when all this happened, and it was already clear to me that the social awareness promised to me by the university was not universally given. I would have to fight for respect and inclusion.

While our publication was still running, we were met with stories from people across many racial, ethnic and cultural identities who expressed to us their dismay in how campus publications and the journalism department responded to their identities.

In many cases, these students were told that their voices didn’t fit the tone of the campus publication or had their pieces edited in a way that catered to the white Catholic majority on campus, completely erasing some elements of their personal identities.

Following the end of this venture, I wrote a piece called “The DePaulian Question of Free Speech for All” about how the campus community targeted and restricted the rights of marginalized groups to freely express themselves and fostered false narratives about their identities.

During my time at DePaul, I have seen meaningful progress, such as the success of La DePaulia, the introduction of a two-quarter class on social justice reporting and the launch of DePaul chapters for the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association for Hispanic Journalists.

But, it’s not enough.

The racial makeup of DePaul’s College of Communication remains predominantly white with very little LGBTQ+ representation. Only one full-time staff member in the journalism department is a person of color.

The protests during the summer of 2020 prompted the College of Communication to assign a designated “diversity fellow.” The position is a step in the right direction, but its title singles out the otherness of faculty of color in the program and acknowledges that they are an alien and a token in a sea of whiteness.

In truth, they are, and that’s the problem. There’s a systemic embrace of non-LGBTQ+ whiteness and a blindness to its dominance in the journalism department.

There’s been a push to diversify the journalism scene at DePaul to invite more students of color to contribute to campus media and recruit them to apply for a journalism degree at DePaul.

However, the culture of the program still favors whiteness and continues to tokenize minority groups. It will remain as such unless students continue their fight for progress and the College of Communication administration becomes comfortable with confronting its racial bias.

Overall, I have greatly enjoyed my time at the journalism program at DePaul, but there is a need for improvement if it truly wants to embody the Vincentian mission.