The Greene County Democrat

Tag: higher education

  • Tuskegee University Bans Bonnets And Du-Rags On Campus. Let’s Talk About It

    Tuskegee University Bans Bonnets And Du-Rags On Campus. Let’s Talk About It

    By Zack Linly, NewsOne

    Tuskegee’s new dress code policy is part of a larger policy that, to its credit, does have practical applications as well.

    Black people, especially here in the U.S., have a complicated relationship with presentability. Historically, we’ve been looked down upon as a collective, no matter what we’re wearing. A lot of Black people will note that Martin Luther King Jr. was wearing a suit when a rabid white man assassinated him. I’m not sure I like that reasoning since King was killed because of the work he was doing and the systemic racism he led a fight against — not because someone mistook him for a thug due to baggy clothing or a head scarf — but the point still stands that adhering to a largely white and Western standard for how one should dress in public certainly won’t save us from the prejudice that also comes with that standard.

    I’m not even sure if there’s a societal frame of reference for respectability politics as it relates to white people and other racial groups, but for Black people, it’s a 400-year plague that has infected many of us with deeply colonized mentalities. But whatever, Black people can think what they want; the problem arises when they start making policy around it in Black institutions.

    So, let’s talk about this new dress code banning bonnets and du-rags in classrooms and the cafeteria at Tuskegee University.

    So, first, it should be noted that, according to AL.com, Tuskegee’s updated dress code also prohibits students from wearing house shoes and “revealing clothing” and mandates that students attending professional events or business meetings must wear business suits and appropriate footwear. Tuskegee President Dr. Mark A. Brown said the changes aim to give students a “solid foundation for the workforce they will enter once they leave Tuskegee” rather than limit their college experience. But do they actually do the former and not the latter?

    I wonder if Brown, the other administrators at Tuskegee, or any of the Black people on social media who agree with the new policy — and there are many of them — have actually witnessed or even heard about a college graduate showing up to a job interview or business meeting in a bonnet or du-rag and slippers. Certainly, this must be a real, non-delusional concern of theirs due to a totally-non-fictional phenomenon that is reflected in reality — otherwise, we’re just talking about students going to class and to lunch dressed comfortably, and one might get the impression that these blushing negroes just don’t like seeing certain aspects of Black existence being on display where everyone else can see us. 

    Remember when the killing of Trayvon Martin by racist neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman started off as a discussion about systemic racism, racial profiling, and the inherent white supremacy of “stand your ground” laws, until it devolved into a debate around whether Trayvon should’ve been wearing a hoodie in the first place? That might have been a discussion that began in the Caucasian world of justifying violent Black death at the hands of bigoted vigilantes, but it’s one that also included white-gaze-fearing Black people warning other Black people about the dangers of hooded casual wear and how we should abstain from it even when we’re doing something as mundane as walking home from the corner store. The implication there is that Trayvon might still be alive if the sweater he was wearing was hoodless, and the Black people who were subjecting their own to such warnings purported to be looking out for our collective best interest then, too. But were they merely looking out for their own in the interest of our collective safety, or was Trayvon’s story simply the excuse they needed to reinforce their own disgust with Black people not adhering to their conservative views on how we should assimilate, mirroring that of our white counterparts?

    But you know what, let’s stick to the subject at hand, which, by the way, is far from unique to Tuskegee, as respectability politics are an issue at HBCUs across the country, unfortunately, regardless of how often the richness and fullness of Black culture is on display at these institutions.

    Again, Tuskegee’s new dress code policy is part of a larger policy that, to its credit, does have practical applications as well. For example, the new policy holds that students must keep cellphones turned off during class unless professors give specific permission to use them, and it requires the university to monitor attendance more closely, “viewing regular class participation as essential to academic success, according to the updated policy,” as AL.com reported.

    Now, see, these policies might actually help with the fact that at Tuskegee University, only 29% – 31% of students finish on time within four years, only 57% – 61% of students complete their bachelor’s degrees within six years, and the fact that roughly 20% to nearly 30% of 73% – 81% of first-year students fail to return for their sophomore year, according to the U.S. News and World Report.

    But, no, no — I’m sure student retention and performance will improve greatly now that administrators are telling them they need to be in a button-down shirt and slacks when they go to class, and to leave their protective head coverings in their dorms.

    Good luck with all that.

    Read the original article here.

    Featured Image: Young African American photographer (ASphotowed / Getty)

  • US Supreme Court in 4-3 vote upholds affirmative action at University of Texas

    By: David Smith in Washington and Alan Yuhas in New York, The Guardian

    The principle of affirmative action for African American and Hispanic people seeking access to higher education received a boost on Thursday when the supreme court upheld a controversial program run by the University of Texas.

    In a 4-3 ruling, the court decided that the university’s scheme, which considers race as part of its admissions process, is constitutional. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she worked on it while serving in the justice department.

    Most students are admitted to the University of Texas through a scheme that guarantees slots to Texans who graduate in the top 10% of their high school classes. But for a quarter of its intake, it considers race as one factor among many, a formula supported by the Obama administration.

    Justice Anthony Kennedy warned that though the Texas program is constitutional it may still be the subject of future scrutiny by the courts.

    “The Court’s affirmance of the University’s admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement,” he wrote. “It is the University’s ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admission policies.”

    The ruling strengthens affirmative action programs around the country, making them more likely to survive discrimination suits.

    Kennedy wrote that universities deserve “considerable deference” in how they run themselves, “but still, it remains an enduring challenge to our nation’s education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity”.

    Universities and states can be “laboratories for experimentation”, he said, citing UT Austin as a school that could serve as an example to others. But his commendation came with an order to continuously re-evaluate whether “changing demographics have undermined the need for a race-conscious policy”.

    Justice Samuel Alito took the remarkable step of reading his dissent from the bench – an act reserved only for when justices, usually decorous even in defeat, passionately disagree with a ruling. After Kennedy read the conclusions of his 20-page ruling, Alito read his 50-page dissent in its entirety.

    “UT’s crude classification system is ill suited for the more integrated country that we are rapidly becoming,” Alito said. “If an applicant has one grandparent, great-grandparent, or great-great-grandparent who was a member of a favored group,” he asked, “is that enough to permit UT to infer that this student’s classroom contribution will reflect a distinctive perspective?”

    This system of self-identification, Alito argued, “is an invitation for applicants to game the system”.

    In a separate dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas repeated his view that the constitution outlaws any use of race in higher education admissions.

    Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton welcomed the ruling, calling it a “win for all Americans”.

    “Having a student body with diverse experiences and perspectives breaks down barriers, enriches academia, and prepares our young people to be leaders and citizens in our increasingly diverse country,” she said.

    Arguments at last December’s hearing focused on whether the university can be justified in using race as a factor and showed a clear split between conservatives and liberals.

    Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Texas, claims she was deprived of a place at the university because of her race. Bert Rein, representing Fisher, argued that the “top 10%” program was sufficient to bring in Hispanic and African American students and said the university could adopt other measures to diversify its student body without explicit reference to race.

    Texas said the “top 10” program alone was not enough and it needed the freedom to fill out incoming classes as it saw fit. Gregory Garre said on behalf of the university that minority enrolment dropped at top public universities in California and Michigan after they ended consideration of race.

    “If this court rules that the University of Texas can’t consider race, we know exactly what will happen: diversity will plummet, especially among African Americans,” Garre said. “Now is not the time and this is not the case to roll back student-body diversity in America.”

    But during oral argument, Alito said the university was engaging in “terrible stereotyping” by suggesting there was something “deficient about the African American students and the Hispanic students who are admitted under the top 10% plan”.

    It is unclear what impact the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February ultimately had on the opinion.

    Scalia might have swayed the moderate Kennedy away from such a strong affirmation of race-conscious admissions. In at least three past cases on related issues, Kennedy had sided against affirmative action programs. Scalia at the very least could have deadlocked the decision 4-4. The conservative justice had made his opinion on the case known in December, when he suggested that black students might benefit from the end of affirmative action.

    “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school, where they do well,” he said during oral arguments in December.

    The court first heard Fisher’s case in 2012 but the case ended inconclusively and was sent to a lower court for review. The federal appeals court in New Orleans twice upheld the Texas admissions program and rejected Fisher’s appeal.

    Fisher’s case was conceived by Edward Blum, an opponent of racial preferences. Blum also is behind lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that aim to eliminate any consideration of race in college admissions.

    The Supreme Court has previously allowed affirmative action in limited cases though it has said it wanted to phase it out because it was a form of racial discrimination.

    Such programs date to the 1960s, when they were first used to try to reduce racial segregation, but strict quotas were ruled unconstitutional by the court in 1978. Since another test case in 2003, race may now only be used as a factor if it can be shown to be essential in creating educational diversity in class.

    Eight states ban the use of race in public college admissions: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report