Penn State students have been asked to "trust the forces" regarding the 1999 Framework to Foster Diversity report.

Based on how the university reacted when students began to receive death threats last spring and how it dealt with other diversity-related issues, it is difficult to blindly trust these "forces."

This report, which details a five-year plan to promote diversity on campus and transform Penn State into a multi-cultural organization, will not be publicized. Vice Provost Terrell Jones explained that the report is "just not a public document" and no information in the report will be available to the public until a mid-plan assessment is released later this semester.

The members of the Undergraduate Student Government joint diversity committee have asked that the report be released now, so that students can see the "progression" of the university's actions regarding diversity on campus.

We believe these findings should be released for a number of reasons.

First, the information in the report won't be fully publicized until 2003, when the study is over. By then, many of the students who attended Penn State and/or participated in the Village in the spring of 2001 will have graduated. A new crop of students, who are not aware of what transpired during that spring, may not be able to appreciate the findings when they are released. The death threats are still fresh in students' minds and they should know what steps the university is taking to combat race-related crimes and ignorance at Penn State.

Secondly, university administrators should be held accountable for their actions. This is an important issue on campus and students deserve to know if the heads of this university are making any progress.

Also, university administrators need to keep the lines of communication open and releasing this report is a way to do just that. If students are able to view the report, they might be able to contribute their ideas on how to promote diversity at Penn State.

Finally, Penn State should be championing this report, not hiding it. We should be sharing the knowledge we have gained from this study with other universities.

Even if the administration is failing miserably with its efforts to promote diversity, other higher education institutions would benefit from understanding what went wrong, so as to avoid similar pitfalls at their universities.

There appears to be a multitude of benefits to releasing this report.

The university's refusal to publicize the report coupled with Jones' vague answer to why it will not, leads us to wonder — just what are they hiding?