Just before midnight on Thursday, November 12, nearly 200 students gathered outside the house of Peter Salovey, Yale University’s president. Passing around a megaphone, they read him their demands.
Among other things, they wanted mental-health professionals placed in each of the university’s four cultural centers, which serve black, Asian-American, Hispanic, and American Indian students. And in Yale’s Mental Health and Counseling Center, they wanted more counselors of color.
“There is a preponderance of evidence,” one of the students said, “that racist environments, like Yale, harm the physical and mental health of people of color, like us.”
‘When students of color feel unsafe on these predominantly white college campuses, there are mental-health consequences.’
As students on campuses across the country protest racial inequality, mental-health services for minority students keep coming up. It may not be students’ primary concern, but when students present lists of demands, it is often one of them.
When students at the University of Missouri at Columbia issued their list of demands, in October, they asked the university to hire additional mental-health professionals, “particularly those of color.” And this week at Occidental College, students demanded physicians of color “to treat physical and emotional trauma associated with issues of identity.”
In the United States, minority students report higher rates of depression than do white students, but they are less likely to seek mental-health treatment. And for college students in all minority groups, stress related to race can predict psychological distress, studies have found.
Minority students need culturally sensitive support, protesters say. Living in hostile, unwelcoming environments changes how minority students experience campus life. They face unique psychological challenges, the argument goes, and so need unique mental-health services.
“When students of color feel unsafe on these predominantly white college campuses, there are mental-health consequences,” said Kevin Cokley, a professor of counseling psychology and black studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Last week Mr. Cokley attended a “town hall” organized by African-American students, who shared their experiences with racism and discrimination on the campus. At times the gathering got emotional.
“The stories that we heard from them were heart-wrenching,” Mr. Cokley said. “We witnessed students breaking down during this town-hall meeting.”
Mr. Cokley has studied what he calls “impostor feelings,” which can affect minority students’ confidence. Those students find it difficult to internalize success, and they suffer from higher rates of mental illness.
As new concerns come to light, colleges and universities are trying to adapt. “I think schools understand that it’s a new day now,” said Darcy Gruttadaro, who oversees the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s campus program. “They need to listen very carefully.”
A Cultural Shift
But in the national consciousness, minority mental health is a new issue. With little precedent and scant research, college counseling centers don’t always know how to move forward.
“I’m sure there are programs out there,” Ms. Gruttadaro said. “There certainly is training. But it’s more than training. It’s a whole cultural shift.”
Ohio State University has suicide-prevention brochures tailored to students of different races. The university’s Counseling and Consultation Service runs groups specific to students of color, and students can receive clinical services in six languages.
At North Carolina State University, the Counseling Center compares the racial makeup of patients with the racial makeup of the student body. When there are disparities, the Counseling Center can tell that a group is underserved.
Recently the center discovered that international students were underserved. The university started including the center on campus tours, so students could see what the office looks like. Twice a week a counselor holds drop-in hours at the Office of International Services.
“We’re not asking them to walk through the doors of the Counseling Center first,” said the center’s director, Monica Osburn. “We’re meeting them where they are.”
At Yale the students outside Mr. Salovey’s house asked for an answer by November 18.
On November 17 the president sent an email to the Yale community. “I have never been as simultaneously moved, challenged, and encouraged by our community — and all the promise it embodies — as in the past two weeks,” he wrote. The email was 19 paragraphs long.
Near the middle of it, he responded to the students’ mental-health demands. Professional counselors will schedule hours at each of the four cultural centers, he said. Yale’s counseling staff will receive additional multicultural training, and the university will make “renewed efforts” to increase staff diversity.
At the University of Missouri at Columbia, the vice chancellor for student affairs, Catherine C. Scroggs, focused on the issue briefly in a statement to parents.
“We recognize many students were fearful, sad, and anxious,” she wrote. “We have made multiple resources available for your children, including additional counselors, including counselors of color.”
More Credibility
Many advocates agree that colleges’ counseling centers should strive to better understand their minority students’ cultural complexities, and then tailor their services accordingly. But at universities like Yale, students are also demanding a more-diverse counseling staff, a request many colleges struggle with.
When minority students can schedule appointments with minority practitioners, supporters argue, they will be more likely to seek treatment.
“Folks already have some misgivings about approaching mental-health supporters and practitioners,” said Evan Rose, president of the Steve Fund. Mr. Rose’s family established the fund, which supports mental-health services for students of color, after his brother committed suicide, in 2014.
For students of color, Mr. Rose said, getting help becomes easier when they can approach counselors of color — especially when they’re dealing with issues related to being a member of a minority group.
“The more people can identify with your outward expression, the more likely you are to have more ascribed credibility,” said Michael G. Mason, an assistant dean of African-American affairs at the University of Virginia.
Mr. Mason is also director of Project RISE, a peer-counseling program for African-American students. When students work with a clinician of their race, he said, they might feel more open and hopeful about their treatment. But talented clinicians will earn credibility regardless of their race, he said.
Still, for many universities, finding a diverse pool of qualified practitioners is difficult.
“We need to do a better job as a profession in attracting people of color to the profession of counseling,” North Carolina State’s Ms. Osburn said. “Minority students need to see someone in the Counseling Center they feel like they can connect and identify with.”
