M. Christopher Brown

Collegiate Desegregation and the Public Black College: A New Policy Mandate

Introduction There is a growing corpus of literature that details the contemporary and historical importance of Americas black colleges and universities (M. C. Brown, 1999; Brown & Freeman, forthcoming; Foster, Guyden, & Miller, 1999). In recent years, depictions of black colleges and universities have even found a home in popular media outlets (e.g., School Daze, A Different World, The Cosby Show). The national publicity given to the successful capital campaigns at or for private black colleges (e.g., Spelman College, Hampton University, College Fund/United Negro College Fund) has also fueled a broader recognition of these institutions by society. There is however, a quiescence about the unique position of public black colleges and universities (e.g. Grambling State University, Alcorn State University) within state systems of higher education despite this new found celebrity among many private institutions (e.g., Fisk University, Morehouse College). In order to chart prudently the future of public historically black co lleges and universities, research must be framed with a comprehensive and cogent understanding of the nexus between these institutions and collegiate desegregation compliance. Public black colleges appear to be at a crossroads in their academic history (M. C. Brown, 1995a, 1999; Brown & Hendrickson, 1997). More than forty years of confusing and sometimes conflicting collegiate desegregation compliance initiatives as well as an unjustified reliance on enrollment by policymakers as the measure of compliance have rendered public black colleges the sacrificial lamb in the quest to desegregate public systems of higher education (M. C. Brown, forthcoming). While the issue of collegiate desegregation continues to be adjudicated in 4 states (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee), state and national policymakers continue to struggle toward developing policies that can guide all 19 Southern and border states involved toward compliance. Consequently, the mandate to desegregate Southern higher education systems presents fundamental policy questions regarding institutional missions, curricula, admissions policies, and fiscal appropriations. Each of these issues challenge the historic mission and character of the public black college. The limited extant research on how to attain collegiate desegregation compliance may be an acknowledgement of the difficulty of investigating this complex educational and public policy issue. Though it is possible to ferret out the differing perceptions of the courts, government administrators and state policymakers when examining the legal history of desegregation (M. C. Brown, 1999; Preer, 1982), there is an absence of consensus regarding which policies are necessary to overcome the continuing effects of historical segregation in higher education institutions. This void may result from an unwillingness of researchers and policymakers to confront the unique positionality of public black colleges in relation to all public institutions. Consequently, higher education continues to struggle with outlining attainable desegregation compliance activities. This article documents the scope of collegiate desegregation compliance and explores critical policy questions that persist. The article also identifies policy concerns for future commentary and investigation. As such, it is not intended to advocate the maintenance of public black colleges, but to ask policy questions from the vantage of that distinctive group of institutions which heretofore have been left out of the policy discussion. Following a brief review of the literature, collegiate desegregation compliance will be placed in its proper historic context, examined for critical underlying issues, and then redefined for effective application to public historically black colleges. Highlights from the Research Literature The literature on collegiate desegregation includes myriad theoretical perspectives and positions. …

Good Intentions: Collegiate Desegregation and Transdemographic Enrollments

Collegiate desegregation remains one of higher education’s most important challenges. The quest to facilitate equity and equality in postsecondary educational access, opportunity, and attainment is a critical effort in advancing America’s democratic ideal (Brown, 1999b). Yet despite collegiate desegregation’s significance, higher education researchers and policy makers lack clarity or consensus about it even as state coordinating boards and institutional boards of trustees implement collegiate desegregation compliance initiatives. Current desegregation initiatives center on changing the

The Quest To Define Collegiate Desegregation: Black Colleges, Title VI Compliance, and Post-Adams Litigation.

Foreword by Charles V. Willie An Introduction to the Quest Black Colleges and Desegregation The Unfinished Quest for Compliance Desegregation Litigation Reborn Legal Standards for Compliance Challenges to Compliance Defining Collegiate Desegregation Afterword by Robert M. Hendrickson Appendix A: Glossary of Legal Terms Appendix B: A Note on Methodology Bibliography Index

Seeing the Invisible Color Black: Race-ing the collegiate desegregation discourse

The purpose of this article is to racialize the statutory and legal discourse on collegiate desegregation in the USA. Inasmuch as collegiate desegregation has emerged as a major factor in policy at all levels of education in the past two to three decades, the social forces that led to the initial desegregation litigation, the subsequent development of legislation, and issuance of compliance regulations must all be examined to fully understand the intent of desegregating public higher education. This is an area of higher education law that is of increasing importance to national and state-level policy-makers, higher education officials, administrators, faculty, and researchers. The primary aim is to problematize the role of race in the legal discourse which surrounds collegiate desegregation in the USA. The article ends by issuing a clarion call for a race-conscious (rather than color-blind) model of collegiate desegregation.The purpose of this article is to racialize the statutory and legal discourse on collegiate desegregation in the USA. Inasmuch as collegiate desegregation has emerged as a major factor in policy at all levels of education in the past two to three decades, the social forces that led to the initial desegregation litigation, the subsequent development of legislation, and issuance of compliance regulations must all be examined to fully understand the intent of desegregating public higher education. This is an area of higher education law that is of increasing importance to national and state-level policy-makers, higher education officials, administrators, faculty, and researchers. The primary aim is to problematize the role of race in the legal discourse which surrounds collegiate desegregation in the USA. The article ends by issuing a clarion call for a race-conscious (rather than color-blind) model of collegiate desegregation.

The Absence of Indigenous African Higher Education: Contextualizing Whiteness, Post-Apartheid Racism, and Intentionality

Abstract The concomitance of black-skinned student-populated colleges and universities on the African continent has created a quiescence regarding whiteness, racism, and disparity in African higher education. Resultantly, scant attention has been paid to the role and possibilities for Black populated colleges across the African continent to transform the political, social, and economic realities of African nation-states. In fact, the confluence of Western imperialism, slavery, genocide, and the contemporary frame of terrorism is highly correlated with the seeming permanence of war, oppression, and poverty across the African diaspora in general and on the African continent in specific.

The Black College Mystique (review)

(Gasman, Baez, & Turner, in press). This book provides an excellent model for the next logical study: students of color at nonselective four-year colleges. After reading the book, I am left with the questions similar to those I usually ask when studying college students. Here I ask: What do these elite schools do to help the students that they bring to campus? Are there differences across institutions in the ways that arriving students are brought into the community of scholars that exists at the campus? Do some of the schools capitalize more than others on the unique strength of the students? And finally, the most obvious question: How did these students differ from students at other kinds of college campuses? Maybe the answers to these questions will help all institutions move beyond “sinking or swimming.”

Stand and Prosper: Private Black Colleges and Their Students

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are an integral part of the American system of higher education. Notwithstanding, these institutions are perpetually neglected and/or masked by considerable ambiguity within the postsecondary research and policy literature. In a departure from this academic malaise, Stand and Prosper makes a meaningful contribution to the ongoing quest for understanding, recognition, and appreciation of these institutions. The book addresses the struggles and challenges that have plagued the black college since its inception, while simultaneously highlighting their praiseworthy successes. Respectfully, Drewry and Doermann utilize a keen analytic lens to detail the realities of HBCUs in the present combined with insightful projections toward possible challenges. As a result, they produce a cohesive document that synthesizes the birth, evolution, and future of private black institutions. Drewry and Doermann suggest that in order to demystify the complexity surrounding black colleges, it is necessary to understand their historic roots. Prior to the Civil War, the combination of slavery and segregation restricted educational access and opportunity for black Americans. During this time, the majority of the black population was located in the South where laws prohibited them from being able to read or write. While there were a few exceptions, black students were summarily denied entry to institutions of higher learning. As an attempt to amend this injustice, the American Missionary Association, along with northern abolitionists, worked to establish schools that would indoctrinate and educate former enslaved individuals and their progeny. Black colleges and universities developed, and as a result, dual systems of higher education evolved, one for European Americans and the other for African Americans. Incontestably, the educational experiences of blacks and whites were separate and unequal.

On the Limits of the Law: The Ironic Legacy of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act

On the Limits of the Law is Stephens Halperns compelling examination of the legal struggle to control the enforcement of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act-the historic provision prohibiting racial discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance. Although the provision appeared to have immense power to fight racial inequality in education, Halpern argues, attacking the problem through legal rights and litigation distorted our understanding of educational inequality based on race and limited the remedies used to address it. Halpern also shows how this focus on legal recourse led to the expansion of the civil rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s to include groups such as Hispanics, women, the elderly, and the handicapped. As the injuries experienced by these different groups were increasingly portrayed as comparable to - if not indistinguishable from - those suffered by black Americans, the later came to be viewed as one of many historically mistreated groups. In that change, Halpern concludes, the nation lost its sense of the unparalleled place, the virulent force, and the unique historical evil of racial discrimination.