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Black History Month at Hillsdale
February is Black History Month, and across
the nation events are being planned by schools, universities,
libraries and other organizations to commemorate the theme of
this year's celebration: the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board
of Education.
The Supreme Court's 1954 landmark decision
to desegregate public schools marked the first of many changes
in American society that would come about because of the civil
rights movement. A year and a half after the Brown decision,
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white
passenger, launching the Montgomery bus boycotts, which ended
with a Supreme Court decision declaring segregated buses unconstitutional.
These events, as well as the life and tragic
death of Martin Luther King Jr.-whose birthday on Jan. 19 passed
without much notice on Hillsdale's campus-have become part of
our country's collective experience and conscience.
Over the past 50 years we have come a long
way toward establishing equality between races in America, yet
the process itself has raised questions and concerns and introduced
new ideas about diversity and equality that have begun to manifest
themselves in oftentimes strange, counterproductive ways.
But the merits of diversity should not be
dismissed, especially in the context of higher education. Hillsdale
College has a strong and commendable record on racial equality
that goes back to its inclusion, in 1844, of all races, including
blacks. And the tradition has been maintained through the years.
For example, a year after Brown v. Board of Education, Hillsdale's
football team turned down a bid to play in the Tangerine Bowl
in Orlando, Fla., because the bowl commission would not allow
Hillsdale's black students to participate. But the school has
perhaps a less distinguished record when it comes to racial
diversity. Surveys and polls need not prove this; one may simply
look around at the student body and observe the lack of diversity
on our campus.
Left-wing liberals and "progressive"
institutions make much of these things nowadays; in some circles
racial diversity is even touted as an academic goal (or an academic
necessity, as in the the University of Michigan's affirmative
action case). During Black History Month the issue will doubtless
appear more often in public discourse.
We have noticed, however, a strange trend
emerging with respect to race and diversity in higher education-namely,
the implosion of the idea upon itself. As institutions strive
to achieve racial diversity on their campuses, many of them
intentionally thwart intellectual diversity among both students
and faculty. Colleges and universities have traditionally been
concerned with ideas and the free exchange thereof, not righting
historical wrongs through race-based admissions policies. Yet
as colleges and universities begin to see more minority representation
in their classrooms, they have also begun quietly to segregate
certain ideas and opinions, restricting the kinds of discourse
that are considered "appropriate," and in many cases
even imposing speech codes that reflect a specific social ideology
or political conviction.
It is this matter that most concerns us at
Hillsdale College, where the lack of intellectual diversity
among the student body is as apparent as our lack of racial
or ethnic diversity. The status of the latter as an academic
goal is certainly an issue open to debate, but the former is
a fundamental necessity in a liberal arts college. A classical
liberal education includes exposing the student to conflicting
viewpoints and competing doctrines; through rigorous study he
learns how to think clearly and independently. The temptation
for a school like Hillsdale to encourage partisan reductionism
rather than intellectual liberality and subtlety is greatly
increased in times of heightened political polarization such
as we are now passing through.
Therefore, throughout the month of February,
in recognition of Black History Month and the growing threats
to authentic diversity in higher education, we will focus on
diversity at Hillsdale College through a series of student polls,
news stories, editorials and features. We will examine various
aspects of diversity and their place at this college. We will
ask questions about what kind of experience students have at
Hillsdale. The crucial questions are universal: How important
is it for students to interact with individuals from other cultures,
ethnic groups, backgrounds and religions as they form a worldview
and a political consciousness in 2004? Likewise, how important
is it that they wrestle with many and diverse ideas, so that
when their minds finally do settle on something they are able
to communicate and defend their position in a world where the
semblance of diversity too often serves as a guise for intolerance
and ignorance? We think it's pretty important.
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