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Separate
but Equal at UVa
The
University of Virginia must work to overcome
Virginia's legacy of discrimination -- but
supporting the self-segregation of black students
is not the way to do it.
In
recent weeks, news of racial tension on the
hallowed grounds of the University of Virginia has
shocked the consciousness of the Commonwealth.
Black students and administrators report that
campus climate is rife with mistrust after a
series of allegedly racially motivated verbal and
physical attacks on them.
The
incidents coincide with the
hiring of a senior administrator in charge of
diversity and equity, a move met with
consternation in some circles. With Mr.
Jefferson's university working toward increasing
its multi billion-dollar endowment, pushing toward
greater national stature, and attempting to prove
that the General Assembly made the right decision
to grant it a new "charter" status with
less state control, word of such discord comes at
an inopportune times.
Unfortunately
for UVa, this kind of racial animus is not new.
The university has a troubling history when it
comes to matter of race starting for its
inception. The Jefferson-designed campus was most
likely built by the hands of slave labor, and Mr.
Jefferson himself was embroiled in a racial
scandal with Sally Hemmings that lingers over the
Monticello region to this day. The university
refused to admit African Americans until the later
half of the 20th century, and the black student
population was negligible well into the 1970's.
Out
of this environment came a push toward affirmative
action policies primarily intended to help Blacks
overcome the vestiges of ingrained
institutionalized and socialized racism at the
school. Steps were taken to directly remedy such
past bigotry, including special summer programs
for prospective black students and existing
undergraduates, a separate admission process for
Black applicants with lower standards than those
for whites, separate on-grounds recruiting events,
targeted recruitment of black faculty in certain
disciplines, and a student service administration
designed to help black students feel more
comfortable at UVA.
Given
the university's history of bias, such
extraordinary measures were necessary and
appropriate. To a large extent, such moves
unchained the aspirations of Virginia's
African-American middle class, as over the next
decades their children gained access to the
flagship higher educational institution in the
Commonwealth, which by then had become a
"Public Ivy" of sorts.
At
some point, however, the move toward proactive
affirmative action policies seems to have veered
into a culture of Black self-segregation, as
students responded to a perceived climate of
racism and bias.
According
to alumni, students, former faculty &
administrators with whom I have spoken, backed by
personal observation over the years, black life at
UVa is markedly different from that of the general
campus community, and often these distinctions go
ignored by the general public and university's
administration. Most African-American students
live within a de facto black college on grounds in
Charlottesville. This black enclave includes
traditional organizations like the Black Student
Union and black fraternities/sororities, as well
as informal institutions such as a particular bus
stop frequently mainly by blacks and particular
dormitories that black students targeted for
residency. From all appearances, white students
are mostly oblivious to this or simply ignore it,
accepting it as a way of life at the school.
Those
African Americans who choose an alternative path
are sometimes ostracized or ignored by the larger
black community. Social pressure extends to black
undergraduates who chose to enter mostly-white
fraternities and sororities, work on various
intellectual journals, participate in debating
societies, and engage with the local multicultural
arts scene.
Black
athletes, particularly football and basketball
players, are given somewhat free rein on campus as
long as their on-field performance keeps the
boosters satisfied and their off-field actions
result in only a few arrests. In sum, life for
most black students revolves around the faux
"separate but equal" community that
flowers there.
This
self-imposed separation mixes with a volatile
combination of alcohol, sex, youthful
indiscretion and freedom from parental
oversight. Thus, when a white student pours beer
on a black girl at a party, or white frat boys get
the bone-headed idea to dress up in blackface, and
African-American students are called
"nigger" in a drive-by epithet attack,
either by townspeople or fellow students, problems
are inevitable.
Now,
the university has ramped up attempts to root out
the perpetrators of racial discord. Though the
sentiments behind it are laudable, this course of
action may do little to foster a climate of mutual
understanding and social change.
The
collegiate years should be a time for developing
cultural literacy, learning about different
worlds, and making journeys of self-discovery. For
this current generation of students which, unlike
previous generations, lives with no a grand sense
of social purpose or civic consciousness, the
university should be the place where students,
regardless of personal history or background, are
shaken out of their comfort zones. UVa has a
responsibility to shape and mold impressionable
18-22 year-olds into honest, open-minded citizens
and leaders of society. Squelching student
expressions of bigotry through censorship and
witch-hunting is not the answer. Engaging all
students in discussions about the deeper roots of
racial difference and its impact would seem to be
a wiser course of action.
UVa's
racial problem is larger than simply a few
isolated incidents of bigotry. The university is a
microcosm of the modern-day Commonwealth, and its
students bring to college all of the baggage they
have accumulated from birth until the end of grade
school. This includes prejudices and biases
fostered by their families, communities, and the
pop culture that pervades their lives.
The
university is part of the context of the new Old
Dominion - and the larger "New" South -
where overt racism and institutional
discrimination are frowned upon, but racial
inequality still persists in other, often
invisible, forms. There is still a discernable
"Good Ol' Boy" network that heavily
influences the Commonwealth's social, economic and
political life and holds UVA up as a crown jewel.
The university's social fabric reflects the
society around it -- one that, admittedly, is
changing for the better as time goes by. As the
Commonwealth becomes more open to all of its
citizens, so will the university.
One
hopes that the university can leverage its ability
to mold young minds in a way that will impact
Virginia positively. Some of those who oppose the
new steps taken by the university have issued a
call for greater colorblindness as official
university policy. While current white students
played no part in the UVA's past racial problems,
they are not absolved of their obligation to be
mindful of that history so that they do not
perpetuate inequality. By the same token, allowing
black students to practice self-segregation from
the larger community merely facilitates a sense of
victimization and undermines their ability to
enhance their American cultural literacy through
interactions with others.
Though
laudatory as a long-term societal goal,
colorblindness is a quaint notion that often
ignores real-world inequities and the persistence
of historical memory that is alive now. For true
colorblindness to prevail, blacks would
essentially have to abandon the ethnic heritage
that they created over the past 300 years, a
culture that buttressed a people against the evils
of racism and color discrimination. Otherwise, the
larger society would have to fully co-opt black
culture as part of its fabric so that
colorblindness would cease to be a code for
assimilation inherently built on the assumption of
the natural superiority of Anglo-American culture.
Given
the pluralistic history of America and the
Commonwealth, where the dominant culture is
continuously shaped by the melding together of
many other elements, African Americans should have
every right to engage with their own heritage
insofar as it does not undermine the values of the
larger system. The university has an obligation to
make certain that all students can take advantage
of the plethora of resources that the institution
can offer, as well as, human resources in the form
of interpersonal interactions of students of
divergent life experiences.
Truly
celebrating diversity requires addressing not just
conventional notions of race, gender, and sexual
orientation to make non-whites more comfortable in
a campus setting. It also includes a broader
examination of economic stratification, religious
pluralism and geographic influences on the lives
and worldviews of all students. All too often,
diversity and equity are cast in a manner that
assigns all whites to a homogeneous category and
expects a degree of guilt from them for the
suffering visited on non-whites.
If
UVA is to make strides in alleviating the tension
on grounds, the new diversity and equity regime
must respect the heritage of the black slave
descendant from Farmville, the
great-great-grandchild of a Scotch-Irish
Confederate officer from Abingdon, the
Fairfax-born son of an IT entrepreneur from New
Delhi, and the Italian-American girl from the
Bronx. Highlighting legitimate ethnic differences
should not threaten either the larger social
fabric of a university if it is done in a
thoughtful manner that respects people's cultural
attachments.
As
a university with the ability to enable greater
personal and social exploration, UVA should
provide its students the psychic space to delve
into all avenues of race, class and culture in
open formats so that the marketplace of ideas can
rule. Pacifying particular groups is not called
for, just as ignoring the problem will not make it
go away.
If
the University of Virginia can make strides toward
an improved racial climate for all Cavaliers, then
it will have truly earned its status as the
Commonwealth's flagship institution and there just
may be hope for a brighter racial future at dear
old UVa.
--
October 3, 2005
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