Every semester during syllabus week I have a crisis about my classes and rethink my entire academic trajectory. This semester followed the same pattern, but was also different in a monumental way.

The class I was most excited for this semester was a requirement for my intended minor, but my feelings quickly changed upon entering the class. It wasn’t as interesting as I expected, and as I often do at Washington University, I noticed I was the only Black person in the room.

My next class of the day was the first class I’ve ever taken in the African and African American Studies department. When I entered the room it was brimming with energy and, quite frankly, Blackness. I had never seen so many people who looked like me in a class before, and when I finally did, it felt even better than I expected. When I thanked the professor for teaching the class afterwards, I reveled in the fact that “there were so many Black people!”

The classroom was an academic setting, but surrounded by so many other African-Americans, I felt seen. No one was going to ask me to be the sole voice for my race, and I felt that I could discuss my experiences as a Black person in the United States in a classroom full of people who understood.

This entire experience reminded me of how important representation is, but it also reminded me that there have been arguments denying the necessity of “safe spaces” on college campuses. While sentiments like this were floating around, I was trying to figure out how to tell my white advisor that I wanted to drop my minor because I wasn’t sure I saw myself continuing to study in a department that didn’t look like me. I’ve heard remarks about the idea that equality is more important than equity on campuses, but with the United States’ history of racial discrimination, we cannot have truly “equal” policies unless explicit efforts are made to make marginalized students more comfortable.

Sure, I understand that Wash. U. is a fairly progressive university; there are historically Black and Latinx merit scholarship programs and numerous cultural affinity groups on campus. But at the end of the day, Wash. U. is still a predominantly white institution. There are people on this campus who don’t know what it is like to have to constantly search for themselves in spaces, and this is a privilege.

Yes, college prepares students for adult life, an environment in which safe spaces may not be very common. But college is also a time where students learn to become their most authentic selves, and in order to do that, marginalized students need spaces where they can gush at the fact that they finally see themselves. They need spaces where they can feel like they are a part of the majority at a university that so often makes them feel like a minority.