For all those people who feel they have been discriminated against on Eastern’s campus, the tunnel might be a constructive way to use the anger to educate those on Eastern’s campus who have never experienced discrimination.

Caleb Judy, University Board Human Potential Coordinator, is enlisting students to help him organize the tunnel. The first meeting is tonight at 7 p.m. in the Thomas Hall Lobby.

Judy has taken on the task of trying to educate those on Eastern’s campus who have never experienced discrimination. He wants those who have never experienced hate to experience it first hand and to understand what it feels like to be discriminated against.

In order to complete his task he is going to create a sort of “tunnel” in the basement of Lawson Hall lobby. Each room will feature a different type of discrimination.

The rooms will feature a multi-media display of hate, Judy said. “I plan to pull hate information from the Internet, T.V., radio, movies, wherever I can find it,” he said. “I’ll pick and choose from what I find and then we’ll use paintings, computers, lettering and T.V. to create the images.”

The rooms in the tunnel will feature such types of discrimination as racism, sexism, ageism, sizeism, anti-semitism, classism, homophobia and xenophobia, Judy said. He may also add a room that features discrimination against handicapped individuals.

He plans to have “leading questions” to ask the student as he/she walks into the different rooms in order to have them “personalize the issue.”

“I want to create an atmosphere of hate,” Judy said. To do this he plans to use low lighting, different colors of lighting and a smoke machine to create the atmosphere. There will also be things like racial slurs or one of Hitler’s speeches playing in the background.

Then, later, as the student leaves the tunnel, he/she will enter a “happy room.” Here they will see smiling faces and hear happy music. Judy said students may also see things written on the walls such as The Golden Rule and there will also be counseling sources there available and there will also be a journal where students can write down what they felt during their walk through the tunnel.

Judy said he needs people to serve on the tunnel panel that have been discriminated against based on the characteristics aforesaid or those who know a lot about the issues and can answer questions relating to those issues. He also needs people with experience in graphic design, art and construction skills. “I want anyone who is aware of the problem of hate on this campus and wants to do something about it,” he said. “I’ll find something for everyone to do.”

Judy said his main driving force for putting together the tunnel experience is that he wants people to understand what it feels like to be discriminated against. He said he is one of the people who have never been discriminated against and he, himself, wants to understand.

“When (students) see (the tunnel) they’ll understand what some people go through everyday,” he said. “Many people don’t experience prejudice and this is for those kind of people.

“(There is) a lot of hate out there that we participate in and don’t realize it. It is simulated into our language and it impacts people around us. People don’t actually look around them when they’re walking around campus. (The tunnel) is to get them to open their eyes.”