Seniors enroll in historically black college, universities
A not-much-talked-about trend is taking root among African-American high school seniors: In increasing numbers, they are bypassing their states’ flagship universities and other mainstream campuses and are enrolling in historically black colleges and universities. One major reason for this trend is the anti-affirmative action movement created and led by politically powerful conservatives, including President George W. Bush, whose Justice Department recently wrote a friend of the court brief opposing the University of Michigan’s use of race in admissions. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Michigan case during this session.
A recent Associated Press article outlined serious problems the University of Georgia at Athens is experiencing in trying to recruit blacks, problems that typify those at many other schools nationwide. Beginning two years ago, when a federal appeals court ordered UGA to stop using affirmative action, officials have been alarmed by the steady decline in the number of black freshmen applying to the flagship campus.
As a result, recruiters are being spread thin as they scour high schools in southern Georgia and black Atlanta for new blood, and officials are resorting to creative measures to make the campus alluring. According to AP, UGA has gone so far as to purchase the names of 12,000 minority high school sophomores and juniors in the Southeast who are qualified for admission. The school has created and filled the new position of associate provost for diversity, it has sent e-mails to students and invited hundreds to campus for personal tours. Unfortunately, nothing seems to make a difference. Blacks continue to stay away. Since 1988, UGA’s black enrollment fell from 6.2 percent to 5.5 percent today.
I have spoken with several black high school seniors throughout the Southeast about their college plans. Most still intend to attend a traditional campus, but those who plan to attend historically black colleges or universities, or HBCUs, are emphatic about their reasons. All say they want a campus where they feel comfortable being African-American. They do not want to “stick out in the crowd,” as a senior at Daytona Beach’s Mainland High School said.
Recently, when I visited Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala., more than a dozen freshmen said that, until last year, they had planned to attend mainline universities, but after reading and hearing about the new racial hostility on such campuses, they chose Stillman instead. The same was true at Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, my undergraduate alma mater.
“I don’t want to attend a school where I’m going to be an outcast,” said Michael Grooms, a freshman from Miami. “Here at B-CC, at least I know that the professors, students and administrators want me here. I mean, it’s like a family. Sure I would love to be at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I think I would get a better education there, but I don’t think I would feel comfortable in Gainesville. Sometimes feeling comfortable is more important than having a big-name teacher.”
Other students at Stillman and Bethune-Cookman say they chose these small black campuses because they like the low student-faculty ratio. At Bethune-Cookman, it is 18:1.
“I get the individual attention I always wanted,” Grooms said. “We don’t have crowded classrooms, and I can see my professors in their offices almost any time I want to. Some of them make office hours part of the course requirements. That’s why the HBCUs are good. Some of the brothers and sisters complain, but they know it’s for their benefit.”
Every black administrator, faculty member and student I have spoken with this year argues that the HBCU may be more important than ever, a sign that race continues to influence higher education in ways that could not have been imagined in 1964 with passage of the Civil Rights Act that knocked down the legal barriers that kept blacks off traditional campuses.
“Some of the same cultural, social and racial forces that created the HBCUs in the first place over a century ago are still with us,” a Stillman professor told me on my last visit. “Ironically, at a time when the HBCUs should be irrelevant, some are getting stronger because of our nation’s race consciousness and hypocritical interpretations of the Constitution.”
He said that the very future of some of these schools will depend on the Supreme Court’s decision in the University of Michigan case. No one I have spoken with is predicting how the court will rule. If Michigan is barred from using race as a consideration in admissions, we can look for African-Americans to continue their steady march to historically black campuses.
Bill Maxwell is an editorial writer and columnist for the St. Petersburg Times. E-mail maxwell@sptimes.com.