Lynn Huntley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 15, 2008
{snip}
Georgia’s public HBCUs have been and are a lifeline for underserved, low income black students. Combining HBCUs with traditionally white colleges would likely result in a net loss of higher education opportunity for underserved blacks and a reduction in diversity in higher education faculty, trustees and administrators.
Assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, a merger would dilute the mission and unique role that HBCUs play. There are lots of traditionally white schools and few HBCUs. HBCUs’ distinctive missions, history, outreach and programs should be preserved. No “one size fits all” approach is appropriate. Let’s preserve diversity in higher education, not reduce it. {snip}
Moreover, the traditionally white institutions in question are, in the view of many, of lesser quality than the HBCUs with which they would be merged. We ought not compromise quality. If the concern is to ensure that all Georgia students attend integrated institutions of higher education, closure of the traditionally white campuses that were opened after the HBCUs in question had functioned for many years seems to be the most promising and equitable option. Closing those schools rather than the HBCUs would promote integration, save money, preserve diversity in course offerings and point of view, and ensure that blacks can continue to receive a good education in historic institutions designed to meet their needs.
Original article
(Posted on December 15, 2008)
Comments
“a reduction in diversity in higher education faculty” shouldn’t pose a problem, unless it means white professors who might actually expect these “underserved blacks” to work and think in order to pass their class.
black college (education) come on now most of the black graduates still have a tough time spelling their own name. black college degree just means - Government Job .. Excessive Pay .. Minimal Production. There was a time when a college degree meant something, today because of the dumbing down of programs so it can look as if minorities are doing something of value, no one is really getting much of an education. What white person with any real ambition really feels going to one of these Combo-Schools is worth the effort?
Question for the writer of this article: Find me a “traditionally white” college or university that’s still white.
They already tried it.
I attended the University of Tennessee at Nashville (UTN) from 1975-78. My father also attended the University of Tennessee at Nashville in the early 1950s. But a lawsuit filed in Federal court resulted in the court-ordered merger of the University of Tennessee at Nashville (which had a lovely downtown campus) and Tennessee State University (TSU), a historically-black state university several miles to the west of the downtown area. When the merger began, they started with roughly the same number of students at each campus…..7,000 at UTN and 7,000 at TSU. When they finished “merging” UTN with TSU, they still had 7,000 students at TSU. The mostly white faculty at UTN were let go and the students left to other colleges in the region. TSU took over the downtown campus and library, shifted some of their own students and faculty to the campus, and it remains that way today. My transcript was moved to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (the main campus).
This is what happens when you combine HBCU and ANY other college. After all, UTN prior to the merger had the highest percentage of black students than any other state college in Nashville, except….of course…..TSU. What they managed to destroy by the merger was the most racially integrated campus in Nashville. So segregation was reinforced by the merger, not integration.
I can’t stop laughing. Is she serious? She thinks black colleges are of better quality than traditionally white ones? Most black colleges seem to promote African-American Studies, African-American Literature (What a joke huh?), and marching bands that jump and jive as if they should be on Soul Train.
What black colleges rank nationally for subject areas that matter? What black college graduates top-tier engineers, doctors, lawyers, architects, or any professional type graduate? Black colleges are a joke at best.
Separate may not be equal, but at least it serves to keep the components from being brought into such sharp contrast.
Ronald
The Black colleges have much higher endowments, pay higher salaries to their professors, and give many more economic benefits to their students than the white colleges with whom they would merge. Why share the wealth with some poor white trash.
Once you know the rule, it all fits into place doesn’t it?
Good luck with getting very many whites to enroll.
HBCUs are a form of racial segregation, and therefore a Good Thing that ought be preserved. And any White college that is academically inferior to the HBCUs ought be closed, and its student body sent back to repeat 10th grade.
Traditional White schools being of “Inferior quality” is the height of stupidity. I have never seen an inferior White institution! Are this reporter crazy? I have only seen inferior quality Black schools in my experiences in Stockton, California -never the obverse!
When I was in NJ, two black men talked of their daughters wanting to go to Spellman College, a BLACK liberal arts school for WOMEN, in Atlanta, GA. I doubt they’d be so eager to go if it was integrated. I think it’s private, so this school is probably not included in the article.
BLACK, PRIVATE, WOMEN ONLY, OUT-OF-STATE? If that was the place to go, it’d never be an option for me in my family.
I agree. While it may cost more money to do so, I think it’s preferable to have separate schools for Whites and Blacks. As many articles on this site have pointed out, these two groups are not on the same mental level, and forcing them to share educational facilities doesn’t serve either of them. Blacks as a whole will never be able to compete with Whites academically, so combining schools will leave many of them out. Affirmative Action programs will always guarantee a small group of Blacks access to these institutions, but the vast majority would be left out based on their mental abilities. The opportunities for Whites would likewise be degraded, since standards would have to be dropped to accomadate the new influx of Affirmative Action Students. A very well known fact of HBCU’s is that their degrees are meaningless. Blacks go to these colleges and universities, in no small part, because they offer different standards than their White counterparts. One of the common assumptions today is that separate is never equal, but we should remember what Edmund Burke said about equality. “No free men are equal, and no equal men are free”. Inequality is an inherent part of nature. Any society that ingnores unalterable truths like this is doomed to failure.
As usual, the position is diversity for thee, but not for me. Blacks get to have their cake and eat it too — majority white schools lack diversity and should admit more black students, but HBC’s ought to remain black so as to “meet the needs” of black students.
The thing is that the latter position is probably the one closest to that favored by Amren posters: that is, black and white students should have the option of attending school in racial settings sympathetic to their needs. The position favored by the author of this piece, however, is not so evenhanded, as it would only permit this choice for black students. Whites are denied it in an unprincipled manner that selectively blends integration AND the separate-but-equal doctrines in a nakedly pro-black manner that makes a mockery of both.
In the great South African experiment all the tertiary insttitutions were merged to cater for all flavors and races - which, of course, lead to their destruction.
Don’t these type newspapers have editors, they just seem to print anything w/o regard to facts, you must have a childlike I.Q. to believe like this reporter.
Georgia’s public HBCUs have been and are a lifeline for underserved, low income black students.
The AJC is a bleeding-heart, liberal rag, as my fellow Georgians/metro Atlantans can testify. Notice how many times the writer mentions the necessity of diversity; that’s just the kind of garbage this disgusting paper likes to print.
Assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, a merger would dilute the mission and unique role that HBCUs play. There are lots of traditionally white schools and few HBCUs.
Black nationalists frequently mouth such inanities from their ghetto cloisters. Too long in the echo chamber will make anyone loopy.
I mean really, “traditionally white schools”? WHAT is that guy smoking? How many of these “traditionally white” schools self-identify as such? How many use that sort of language to refer to themselves in a general way? What would happen to, say, a student who referred, in a neutral or positive way, in a speech or public address to his alma mater as a “traditionally white school?” Confusion? Laughter? Derision? Outrage? Censure?
They got studies to show black children need to be around whites to succeed in school, studies to show they need a white roommate in college, studies to show they need a black teacher, studies to show that they do better in all black universities, studies to show they need affirmative action to get into white universities where they will get a better education.
So, whichever is it?
