Dr. Alicia Jillian Hardy

Congratulations to Alicia Jillian Hardy who, in September of 2007, became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). Her doctoral research was focused in part of developing new, more fuel-efficient forms of internal combustion. She is currently putting her knowledge in this field to use in a 6 – month internship at BMW’s Munich research facility.

An academic standout in high school, where she won awards in math and science, Hardy was accepted at all 14 of the colleges and universities she applied to. On her brother’s advice, she chose M.I.T., but — ironically enough — not for its programs in the sciences. She entered M.I.T. with every intention of focusing on the humanities, and during her first year of college she fell in love with the Institute’s writing program. During her sophomore year, however, she decided to opt for engineering’s more clearly defined path to employment.

As an undergraduate, Hardy took advantage of a broad range of opportunities, both inside and out of the classroom. She was a teaching assistant for the multivariable calculus course and a member of the women’s crew. When graduation finally arrived, though, Hardy did not enter the workforce, opting instead for M.I.T.’s graduate program in engineering. She earned her master’s in 2004 and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering this past fall. When she returns from Munich, Dr. Hardy will begin a full-time position at General Electric where she will be working on biofuel technology.

Although she recently became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., Dr. Alicia Jillian Hardy is not the first in her family to earn a doctorate, nor even the first in her family to complete a Ph.D. in engineering. Her mother holds a doctorate in education and her brother, Cordell, holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering.

Sources: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education and M.I.T. News

Posted by Ajuan Mance

If I was asked to choose a single phrase to describe the state of Black higher education in 2007, it would have to be, “the changing same.” Also title of Deborah McDowell’s landmark study of Black women’s literature and literary theory (The Changing Same: Black Women’s Literature, Criticism, and Theory), this phrase captures the peculiar contradiction between the perception and the reality of Black people’s involvement in higher education during the year 2007.

Perceptions of Black people’s relationship to college and university education are progressing much more slowly than Black people’s real life achievements in academe, largely because Black academic progress simply depends on supporting African Americans’ pursuit of their goals and dreams, while a shift in the perception of Black people’s role in academe depends on changing the minds of people not only within, but also outside of the African American community, including many who have no vested interest in thinking about Blackness in more progressive ways, and who might even have an investment in maintaining the old biases.

Certain events in 2007 have highlighted this divide between popular (and often racist) perceptions of what Black people can and do accomplish on college campuses and the reality of Black student and faculty achievements in U.S. Higher ed. People like Don Imus (who looked at a basketball team full of hard-working, talented young Black women and saw only “hoes”) and James Watson (who stunned progressive communities in the U.S. and abroad with his unabashed assertion that Black people’s intelligence is genetically impaired) espoused ways of looking Blackness that are mired in centuries-old stereotypes. On the other hand, on college and university campuses across the nation, Black students, faculty, and administrators spent the year achieving their goals and setting new ones, all undaunted by the subtle and not-so-subtle racism that swirled around them.

You don’t have to be a person of African descent to feel cheered by the news stories listed below. If you care about people, education, and the future of our communities, the positive changes that these stories point to will fill you with pride in our Black youth, as wells as pride in our capacity as a nation to rise above the worst of our racist history and to move towards a future full of progress and promise for everyone:

1. Black women athletes graduate at impressive rates. The November 15th JBHE Weekly Bulletin reported that among Black men and Black women enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities, the graduation rate for athletes is significantly higher than the graduation rate for Black students who are not athletes. Most surprising is the finding that the national graduation rate for Black women student-athletes (64%) is higher than the national graduation rate for all white male students, athletes and non-athletes, alike.
2. African Americans make “spectacular progress” in the acquisition of master’s degrees. The November 8, 2007 JBHE Weekly Bulletin reported that in the 20 years between 1985 and 2005, the number of African Americans earning master’s degrees from U.S. university nearly quadrupled, from 13,939 to more than 54,000. The most dramatic gains were made among African American women who, in the 2004-05 academic year accounted for 71 percent of the master’s degrees awarded to Black people in the U.S.
3. Washington-led film project puts the spotlight on Black intellect. On Christmas Day African Americans received a wonderful gift in the form of “The Great Debaters,” the Golden Globe-nominated true story of how a debate team from Wiley College, a small HBCU located in Marshall, Texas, rose from nothing to eventually challenge the dominance of Harvard’s legendary squad. Washington compounded this gift of visibility for a little-known aspect of African American history with a special gift to the College itself, a $1 million donation to help re-establish Wiley’s legendary debate program.
4. HBCUs lead the nation in faculty diversity. With Black professors making up just under 60% of the faculty, white professors making up another 21 percent, and other ethnic groups making up roughly 17%, historically Black colleges and universities feature the most diverse faculty composition of any grouping of schools in the U.S. As a point of comparison, consider that nationwide over 80% of all college and university faculty are white.
5. The rising generation of scholars. Although this story was published in 2008 (this morning, as a matter of fact), I am listing it as one of 2007’s “reasons to be cheerful,” mostly because the young men and women included in the profile of the Diverse Issues in Higher Education “Emerging Scholars” for 2008 are being recognized largely for their achievements during the previous year. Of the eight scholars of color listed here, five of them are African American, all are under 40, and all are intellectual standouts, not simply among their respective ethnic groups, but among all scholars in their fields.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

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According to a January 5, 2008 report on AlterNet.org, a number of largely unnoticed GOP-sponsored election laws could have a devastating effect on students’ voting rights. Acoording to this recent article, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, and Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen have all railed against the participation of large numbers of college and university students in the Iowa Caucuses. The basis for this outcry is their believe that out-of-state students somehow “skew” the real, true will of Iowa voters.

Apparently the Clintons and Yepsen are not alone in this belief. On the other side of the political spectrum from Sen. Clinton sit a sizable grouping of Republican legislators who would also seek to limit the participation of students, people of color, and others whose vote might — apparently — contradict the real will of the more authentic, more representative citizens of a given state. Unfortunately, while the Clintons and Yepsen are battling student participation with their words, these GOP legislators are taking more concrete action:

The real barrier to student voting in 2008 is not admonitions from the Clintons. It is a patchwork of state laws, according to Rosenfeld, that discourage student voting. Arizona, for instance, rejects out-of-state driver’s licenses as an acceptable voter ID. The same is true in Indiana. New Hampshire requires students to register at local government offices. Virginia allows local election officials to decide if a dormitory qualifies as a “domicile.” Some do, Rosenfeld said, and some do not. New Mexico restricts the number of voter registration forms one person may carry at a time. And Texas has new penalties for “improperly” helping people with absentee ballots. — Steven Rosenfeld, “GOP Already at Work to Keep Obama Voters From the Polls,” for AlterNet.org

All of these efforts to restrict student voting bring to mind recent and not-so-recent discussions with students in my classes, about whether or not voting has any relevance in the current political environment. In particular, I have encountered a number of young people who are truly struggling to determine whether or not voting in national elections is an effective means of engaging in the work of social change and social justice.

It would seem that this AlterNet article answers that question unequivocally. If the active participation of student voters did not have the capacity to bring about socio-economic and political change, then there would be far fewer efforts to limit that right. Left, right, or center, students need to participate in both national and local elections. As members of a younger generation, one that brings to the table a relationship to issues of gender, race, class, and environment far different than that of older voters, their voices are among the most important in any election. Younger voters understand aspects of our current cultural, economic, and political environment in ways that I and other older voters cannot. Those in the youngest voting demographic were born into and shaped by a world profoundly different from the one in which I came of age, and this difference is reflected in the sometimes dramatically different understanding that we have of the meaning and function of power, media, money, relationships, and family. Young voters’ ideas and opinions reflect an understanding of the current moment that picks up on nuances and subtleties of elements like the relationship of technology to race, for example, that I cannot grasp as easily.

If you are a student, please do whatever you can to insure that — during the current election season — your right to vote is secure. If you are not a student, reach out to young voters both on and off campus, make sure they are registered, and encourage them to participate in this and other elections.

I have long believed that students and other young voters should not have to be convinced and cajoled into working to choose the leaders who will shape the coming decades, and that the importance of exercising this fundamental right was self-evident. Time has shown me, however, that for many young people, generations removed from those who remember when large numbers of Americans were not permitted to exercise their voting rights, the right to vote goes both ways.

Many young people I’ve spoken with consider their refusal to vote a strike against the status quo. I call upon all those who have skipped elections in the past and who are contemplating the possibility of sitting out the current presedential race, and I encourage every one of you, regardless of your political leanings, to consider the type of political statement you are making when you opt out of a system that wants you to do exactly that!

Posted by Ajuan Mance

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Lawrence O. Graham’s exploration of the history and culture of the African American upper class, in books like Our Kind of People and The Senator and the Socialite, has cemented his reputation as today’s premier chronicler of the Black elite. Graham, profiled in this Black on Campus blog entry, has announced his intention to compile the Our Kind of People 800, a registry of what he describes as, “‘the talented tenth’—the kind of blacks that sociologist W.E.B. DuBois discussed 100 years ago—blacks with superior backgrounds: doctors, bankers, lawyers, educators and generous socialites.”

Due out in November of 2008, Graham’s registry will give added prominence and visibility to a Black constituency infrequently depicted and rarely acknowledged by those outside of that group. Indeed, in the public imagination, African Americanness dwells somewhere at the opposite end of the spectrum from achievement, prosperity, and power.

Of course, an emphasis on the wealthiest, most-privileged members of any group raises concerns about whether or not a focus on the fortunate few obscures the plight of economically marginalized communities. Graham’s project, however, is rooted in a desire to make positive social change that will benefit all Black people. He explains that, “So much of what we hear about black America is really the very worst of black America, and a lot of that comes from pop images from shows like Hot Ghetto Mess. It’s almost a re-emergence of the anti-black comedies in the 1950s. but instead of Amos and Andy, you’ve got Flavor Flav up there.”

Whether or not Graham’s compilation of this 21st century “talented tenth” will reinforce or disrupt existing race- and class-based hierarchies stands to be seen; but when compared to other, similiar listings, he is off to a more promising — and much more progressive — start. The United States’ most prominent social register — founded in 1887, by New Yorker Louis Keller — is weighted heavily toward genetics or “blood,” in that a determining factor for inclusion is membership in one of America’s oldest families, most often British or Dutch in origin. The Our Kind of People 800 will, if true to DuBois’s formula for identifying Black America’s most prominent individuals, privilege achievement over blood. The slippery slope will come when and if the 800 begins to privilege one’s ancestry over one’s own accomplishments.

Another factor determining the direction of Graham’s Black social registry will be its use. A productive use of this registry, for example, would be the development of a radio show, television show, or even a website that focused weekly or monthly on a detailed profile of one of the families or individuals listed in the 800, preferably with a teacher’s guide to developing a curriculum emphasizing what the achievements of those Black people who were listed could teach young people about reaching their own goals. A less desirable use of the registry would be the establishment of — say — scholarships based on membership in a registry family. I would also hate to see the deployment of the 800 registry as a gatekeeping tool limiting access to valuable educational opportunities and employment networks.

The true impact of Graham’s Black social registry will not be felt until it has been in circulation for a least a year or two. In the interim, I look forward to its release and to the visibility that it will provide for those African Americans whose life experiences, families of origin, and educational and occupational achievements are at odds with the popular stereotype of Black people as anti-intellectual underachievers, with little regard for family bonds.

Sources: BlackNews.com and The Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted Ajuan Mance

The following piece from the most recent edition of the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education raises some interesting questions about the relationship between race and so-called aptitude testing, versus race and subject-based testing. I plan to revisit this issue in a future post, but for now, I’d like to share with you the newsbrief as it appeared on the JBHE website. I’ve highlighted what I felt were the most provocative portions of the essay in bold type. 

“Black-White Score Differences on Particular SAT II Subject Tests”

–From the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, December 28, 2007

SAT II subject tests are largely used by students who are applying to the nation’s selective colleges and universities. This past year showed a modest increase in the number of blacks taking these tests. Although the increased number of black students taking the tests is a good sign, there remains a large and growing racial scoring gap.

Of all the widely taken SAT II tests in 2007, the black-white racial scoring gap of 108 points, or approximately 18 percent, was the greatest on the world history test. There were also large racial gaps on both mathematics tests, English literature, and American history tests.

College-bound black students generally fared well in comparison with the scores of white students on foreign-language examinations. The black-white scoring gap was only 36 points on the Latin test and 37 points on the French test. On the Chinese test, black students actually scored 77 points higher on average than whites. But only 19 blacks and 97 whites took the test, making racial score comparisons statistically insignificant. The 19 black students who took the Chinese SAT II test had a remarkable mean score of 734. Blacks also had a higher mean score than whites on the Korean language test, but only six African-American students took the test in 2007.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

On balance, it has been a good year for Black people on America’s college and university campuses. This banner year for Black progress in higher ed owes no thanks, however, to the individuals, organizations, and institutions on the following list. Fellow free to nod in disbelief as you give a Hall Shame salute to these 2007 inductees:

1)Boston University — Singled out because, although the population of the city of Boston is now 25 percent African American, Black people make up only 2.6 percent of the BU student body. These numbers are even more disappointing when considered in light of the fact that although Black applicants to Boston U have increased by 39 percent over the last 10 years (in fact, “between 2004 and 2005, [B]lack applicants increased by 18 percent”), the percentage of Black students enrolled at BU has remained constant. Source: JBHE

2)California Community Colleges — Singled out because, according to a summer 2007 report in The Washington Post, only about 25% of those California community college students seeking a certificate, associate’s degree, or transfer to a four-year school succeed in reaching their goal within six years of enrolling. The Post adds that the success rate is even lower for  Black and Latin American students.

How much lower? Well, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reports that, “for black students seeking a degree at a California community college, only 15 percent earn an associate’s degree or transfer to a four-year college or university.” JBHE goes on to explain the importantance of this statistic, adding that, “one of every 14 African Americans who are enrolled in higher education [in the U.S.] today attends a California community college” (emphasis mine), and, “one of every seven black community college students in the United States is enrolled in a state-operated community college in California.”   Sources: Washington Post and JBHE

3)The University of Virginia Cavalier Daily — Singled out because early in the fall 2007 semester, the UVA Cavalier Daily published two racially offensive cartoons created by Virginia senior Grant Woolard. The cartoons were printed only a few days apart and provoked accusations of racism from Black readers on the UVA campus and beyond.

The first cartoon was published on August 31, 2007, and mocked the controversial sexual relationship between UVA founder Thomas Jefferson and his enslaved teenage mistress.

The second cartoon appeared on September 4, and seemed to mock the very real legacy of famine in Ethiopia, depicting loincloth-clad Black people fighting each other with inanimate household objects.

When asked about the choice to print the “Ethiopian Food Fight” cartoon, Cavalier editor-in-chief Herb Ladley responded that, “my initial reaction was, ‘This is offensive.’ But we print a lot of offensive things. The instant the public raised a question about it, we realized it was a mistake.” On September 9th, the managing board of the paper voted to fire cartoonist Woolard. Reflecting on the way that his Ethiopian cartoon was received, Woolard was philosophical, saying, “I will admit that I really lacked the foresight in anticipating the reaction. I should have thought that they were going to think I was portraying Africans as savage and misshapen.”

4)Presidential Candidates Fred Thompson,  Rudy Giuliani,  Mitt Romney, and Sen. John McCain — Singled out because these four candidates snubbed a PBS-sponsored Republican presidential debate, held on the historically Black campus of Morgan State University. Each cited scheduling conflicts, despite being notified of this event well in advance of the official date. Source: Washington Post

5) Fisk University — Singled out because the current financial crisis at this pioneering institution (alma mater of Nikki Giovanni, W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Judith Jamison, Hazel O’Leary, Johnetta B. Cole, and numerous other African American leaders and innovators) suggests strongly and tragically that too few within its current and recent leadership truly cherish and appreciate the immeasurable value of this historically Black university. Fisk University is also singled out because it’s most recent solution to its persistent financial woes (to attempt to sell off a substantial portion of it’s stake in a valuable art collection donated by the late Georgia O’Keefe) underscores the gulf between the high regard in which Fisk has long been held by many outside of the university (including Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz) and the apparent apathy of that handful of figures within within the institution who have overseen its financial decline. Source: NewsChannel5.com

Posted by Ajuan Mance

“In 2005, the 121 Division 1-A football teams generated $1.8 billion for their colleges. “Source: Michael Lewis NY Times writer/reporter

New York Times sportswriter and commentator Michael Lewis breathes new life into the metaphor of big time college sports as a modern-day plantation in his November 11, 2007 Op-Ed piece, “Serfs of the Turf .” 

In it Lewis points out the significant disparity between the big money that college football (particularly, Division I-A college football) generates and the modest compensation received by players (scholarships, free uniforms, travel to out-of-town games). In the past, I have dismissed arguments that big-time college sports athletes deserve to be paid. My resistance to this notion is largely based on my belief that colleges should not value one form of talent over another; the gifted student musicians who populate the University of Michigan Orchestra, for example, should be valued no less than the gifted student athletes who play on UM’s football and basketball teams. In his recent Times article, however, Michael Lewis just might have changed my mind.

Here is the crux of Lewis’s argument:

College football’s best trick play is its pretense that it has nothing to do with money, that it’s simply an extension of the university’s mission to educate its students. Were the public to view college football as mainly a business, it might start asking questions. For instance: why are these enterprises that have nothing to do with education and everything to do with profits exempt from paying taxes? Or why don’t they pay their employees?

This is maybe the oddest aspect of the college football business. Everyone associated with it is getting rich except the people whose labor creates the value. At this moment there are thousands of big-time college football players, many of whom are black and poor. They perform for the intense pleasure of millions of rabid college football fans, many of whom are rich and white. The world’s most enthusiastic racially integrated marketplace is waiting to happen [emphasis mine].

For Lewis, college football — or, at least, “big-time” college football — finds itself far removed from its early function as a gladitorial, school – spirit – generating gentlemen’s game. In the 21st century, big-time college football is still gladitorial, and it still generates school spirit; but it’s most important byproduct is money.

My interest has always been primarily in the fate of the Black male athlete, and I have generally believed that, for this population, the revenue to the school vs. rewards to the athlete was a trade-off. Black college athletes in big college sports generated funds for the school, and they got a fully-funded college degree, in return. A free education was, in my estimation, sufficient compensation. After all, I thought, far too many young pros are forced out of the NFL with broken bodies and no college degrees to fall back on. I was not, however, thinking about those young men who are forced out of college football with broken bodies and barely a year or two of remedial college courses under their belts. Nor was I thinking about the high attrition rate among Black football players in big time sports, half of whom leave school before earning their bachelor’s degrees.

The most striking passage in Lewis’s piece is his discussion of the role of the NCAA in maintaining this complex and dysfunctional relationship between big time football’s highly – paid coaches and athletic directors, the largely middle- and upper-class (and largely white) fans who pack college stadiums, and the uncompensated (disproportionately Black) players. In the following passage Lewis unpacks this disturbing relationship, characterizing the universities as sellers, and the fans as buyers :

[B]etween buyer and seller sits the National Collegiate Athletic Association, to ensure that the universities it polices keep all the money for themselves — to make sure that the rich white folk do not slip so much as a free chicken sandwich under the table to the poor black kids. The poor black kids put up with it because they find it all but impossible to pursue N.F.L. careers unless they play at least three years in college. Less than one percent actually sign professional football contracts and, of those, an infinitesimal fraction ever make serious money. But their hope is eternal, and their ignorance exploitable.

Lewis reminds us that the NCAA allows this unequal relationship based on the notion that colleges are educational institutions, not businesses; and to compensate players beyond the limit of the athletic scholarship would commercialize college sports to a dangerous degree. To that he responds, “College football already is commercialized, for everyone except the people who play it,” and, “If the N.C.A.A. genuinely wanted to take the money out of college football it’d make the tickets free and broadcast the games on public television and set limits on how much universities could pay head coaches.”

The NCAA that Lewis portrays, however, is comfortable with the status quo. As long as the money goes to the coaches, the athletic directors, and the university coffers, a little commercialization (or, in the case of big-time sports powers like Ohio State University and the University of Florida,  a lot of commercialization) of college football is perfectly acceptable. It is only when the players themselves might benefit from the fruits of their labors that the big time football money train comes screeching to a halt. Lewis explains:

the N.C.A.A. confines its anti-market strictures to the players — and God help the interior lineman who is caught breaking them. Each year some player who grew up with nothing is tempted by a booster’s offer of a car, or some cash, and is never heard from again.

The solution — or at least the beginning of the solution — according to Lewis is for all of the parties involved in big time college sports to “get real.” There is pernicious lie, he explains, that exists at the foudation of college football, and this lie enables the current unfair distribution of football-generated wealth to persist:

The lie … goes something like this: serious college football players go to college for some reason other than to play football. These marvelous athletes who take the field on Saturdays and generate millions for their colleges are students first, and football players second. They are like Franciscan monks set down in the gold mine. Yes, they play football, but they have no interest in the money. What they’re really living for is that degree in criminology.

There is so much truth in Lewis’s commentary — and on so many topics — that I could post and respond a great length to each of his major and minor assertions. He does, for example, address the dramatic and much storied academic underachievement of the largely African American big-time football population, reminding us that there are more complicated reasons for the academic failure of these players than a simple lack of brainpower: “It’s not that football players are too stupid to learn. It’s that they’re too busy. Unlike the other student on campus, they have full-time jobs: playing football for nothing.”

In the end, though, all of Lewis’s insightful and at times biting commentary on big time college football is a wake-up call. College football at Williams or Cornell, at Oberlin or Pomona is a labor of love, with players remaining on the squad because they want to (such institutions do not offer football scholarships and players who quite the team see no change in their financial aid status); and for the fans as such insitution, football is both a curiousity and a school-spirit-building source of reverse-pride (“our football team is so bad, you know that the education here must be good”). College football at the Division I-A institutions, on the other hand, is a high-stakes commercial venture whose success or failure in a given years has significant implications not only for the emotional stakeholders (the fans), but for the financial stakeholders, as well.

Until players receive real compensation for their work — in the form either salary payments or, more palatably, in the form of support for their often gravely impoverished families — it will rarely rise above its current status as the worst kind of gladiatorial spectacle — the game itself strategically compelling, and often athletically beautiful, but economically primitive and brutish–  in which the wealthy fans, partisans of one institution or another, enlist disadvantaged and often disenfranchised mercenaries — the poor Black player from the inner city, the financially strapped white player from the rural midwest — to fight their battles for them, to take their hits for them, to risk health, well-being, and the opportunity for real education all in order to earn bragging rights for those legions of rabid enthusiasts.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Sen. Barack Obama receiving an honorary doctorate from historically Black Xavier University in New Orleans

If I had to come up with a single phrase to characterize Barack Obama’s position on Black higher education, it would be social justice/anti-poverty.

Higher education is rarely a major issue in presidential campaigns, largely because the 18 to 24 set does not vote in the numbers that other constituencies do. Hence the stampede on the part of candidates eager to weigh in on medicare, even as they virtually ignore issues like financial aid and standardized college admission tests.

Still, Barack Obama’s website does state an official stance on this subject; and recent comments during an interview with George Stephanopoulos lend clarity to his beliefs surrounding affirmative action.

Obama’s official position on higher education, stated on his campaign website BarackObama.com, steers clear of any mention of affirmative action. He is, after all, attempting to gain the support of a broad cross section of Americans, and not just Black people. Still, his policy statement on higher ed advocates an expansion of opportunity that would benefit African Americans and other marginalized groups, disporportionately.

Obama’s higher ed policy emphasizes increases opportunity to poor and working class youth and their families, with an emphasis on making college more affordable for a wider range of Americans. His position statement advocates, “increasing the maximum Pell Grant from the existing limit of $4,050 to a new maximum of $5,100,” and it reminds visitors that, “Senator Obama has worked in a bipartisan way on the Senate HELP Committee to propose an increase in the Pell Grant to $5,400 over the next few years.”

His policy also seizes upon one of the most widely reported on innovations in college financial aid policy (and an approach that I strongly support), the replacement of college loan aid with grant aid. Obama would like to see more colleges shift from the FFEL loan program to less costly Direct Student Loan program, and then to reinvest the resulting savings in scholarship aid to needy undergraduates. His policy statement on this subject reminds visitors that, “Barack Obama cosponsored Senator Kennedy’s Student Debt Relief Act, which encourages colleges to participate in the Direct Loan program and use the savings to invest in grant aid to students.”

Like his official position statements on higher education policy, Obama’s unofficial — but on-the-record — comments about affirmative action echo the emphasis on widening access to post-secondary education in order to provide opportunity to more young people from poor and working-class families.

In a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos, Obama agreed with the assertion that the candidate is a “strong supporter of affirmative action.” Obama’s response to Stephanopoulos’s question about whether the candidate’s daughters — economically privileged and with highly educated parents — should benefit from affirmative action invoked a concept rarely discussed on television news, the notion of intersectionality/multiple identities. Here’s an excerpt from their exchange on this subject:

Stephanopoulos: And you’re a constitutional law professor so let’s go back in the classroom…..I’m your student. I say Professor, you and your wife went to Harvard Law School. Got plenty of money, you’re running for president. Why should your daughters when they go to college get affirmative action?

Obama: Well, first of all, I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged, and I think that there’s nothing wrong with us taking that into account as we consider admissions policies at universities. I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed. So I don’t think those concepts are mutually exclusive. I think what we can say is that in our society race and class still intersect, that there are a lot of African American kids who are still struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first generation as opposed to fifth or sixth generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country. — as published on Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog

In responding to Stephanopoulos, Obama re-presents affirmative action  as a net gain for America, as opposed to its usually portrayal as a net loss for white people and Asian Americans. In the above statement, affirmative action becomes less a racialized entitlement than a process by which admission officers take into account the disadvantages that have shaped an applicant’s march toward college education, whether that disadvantage race-based or class-based, but also in those cases in which a student’s perceived privilege in one area intersects with his or her disadvantage in another.

Of course, Obama did not invent this approach to college admissions. Indeed, in providing this answer to Stephanopoulos he is truly showing the imprint of his Ivy League pedigree, in that he is simply articulating the admission process already at work on many highly selective campuses. The big secret of private, selective college admission is that working class and poor white applicants do receive special consideration, and affluent Black children of highly-educated parents are evaluated in a process that takes into account both their racial marginalization and their economic privilege.

So, back to the question posed in the title of this post: Is Obama Good for Black Higher Education? I supposed that the best way to answer this question would be to return to the language of net gain and net loss. If Obama’s vision of affirmative action is employed across the board, at public and private selective institutions, and if Obama’s policies on financial aid are put into practice, African Americans and other marginalized ethnic and class groups would benefit. In other words, Black people would experience a net gain in opportunity.

Still, his vision of higher education opportunity offers nothing to address many of the isses that are specific to Black people’s pursuit of post-secondary degrees. Obama fails to address the most dramatic issues effecting African Americans, the disappearance of the descendants of U.S. Black slaves from selective college campuses (and, for that matter, from M.D. and Ph.D. programs, as well), the growing gender gap between Black men and women on U.S. campuses, and the financial crises that jeopardize way too many HBCUs.

I do not, however, completely fault Obama for failing to address these issues. Indeed, a major reason his opinions on these topics have not been widely circulated is because he has not been asked. Why? Because few of the people asking questions of the candidates and getting official, on-the-record statements from them are people of African descent.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Twilight and Reason: Higher Education and the African American Experience has changed! Twilightandreason.com is the companion site to this blog. I’ve shifted the direction of that website from its broad focus on news, opinion, and history, to a more specific emphasis on two areas:

• The Black Milestones in Higher Education Timeline, which traces the people, places, and events that have shaped Black higher education since over the last 278 years.

• A Links Page, with a growing list of hyperlinks to Black student and faculty organizations, Black history pages, Black alumni groups, and other related sites. 

To get to the new and improved Twilight and Reason website, click on one of the links highlighted above.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

On December 14, 2007 Eurweb.com reported that administrators at Northern Illinois University (NIU) have taken actions to ensure the safety of its students following an incident in which racist graffiti was found on the bathroom wall of a campus residence hall. The graffiti used a racial slur to describe African American students and made a reference to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Eurweb describes the content of the graffiti as follows:       

One of the text-message-style rants scribbled on the wall read: “Tell those n*****s to go home.” Another read: “The VA tech shooters messed up w/ having only one shooter….”   

As a precaution, NIU officials cancelled classes on the Monday after the graffiti was found. Classes resumed the next day. Still, many students remain frightened by the messages’ implied threat:

Although the school has forged forward with a business-as-usual approach, many of NIU’s black students – which compose nearly 13 percent of the university’s 18,816 undergraduates – remain uneasy about the incident. School officials estimate that some 200 students have left campus, many heading home.  

Some African American students have linked the sentiment in the scrawled words to a larger climate of racial intolerance on the NIU campus. Here is the way it was expressed by one of the Black student leaders at the University:

“This threat did not come out of the blue,” said Mitchell Gaddis, president of the university’s NAACP chapter. “It’s unsafe for us to walk down Greek Row … and we’re tired of it.”

For the full text of the Eurweb.com article, click HERE. 

Posted by Ajuan Mance