Study reveals that most southern colleges remain segregated

Jet, June 12, 1995

School segregation has been illegal for 41 years, but most public Southern colleges and universities remain segregated, a new report has revealed.

The study, conducted by the Southern Education Foundation Inc. in Atlanta, focused on colleges in 12 Southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Whites and minorities still often attend different public universities, according to the new study. Blacks also receive college degrees at a lower rate than Whites, the study reveals.

The number of Whites who hold bachelor's degrees in all 12 Southern states studied in the report, is about twice as high as the number of Black adults who are college graduates. And the high schools that Blacks and Hispanics attend often fail to prepare them for college.

The study, "Redeeming the American Promise," is the result of 18-months of research and investigation by a 26-member panel of educators, including presidents of historically Black and traditionally White colleges, leaders of educational associations, school superintendents, elected officials, activists, lawyers and business leaders.

The study found that most universities in the South remain more than 80 percent White, while more than 60 percent of Black college freshmen attend historically Black colleges and universities.

The study found that increasingly, minority students feel unwelcome at some White colleges and that "the environments at these institutions negatively affect what and how they learn."

The study noted, "Minorities have come very late to the American promise of freedom and opportunity. They find it stir excludes them. Legislation has not secured it; court decisions have not guaranteed it; goodwill has not provided it; perseverance has not yet wrested it from the hands of those reluctant to live out its true meaning."

The study also stated, "This report is about unkept promises and a historic chance to fulfill them. American education has failed for too long to provide opportunity for too many minority young people." The study continued, "And though the consequences of this failure have cost the nation dearly, nowhere have they exacted as high a price as in the formerly segregated states of the South, where unequal education has resulted in withered hopes and wasted lives. To make real the promise of equal opportunity, we must at last provide equal opportunity for all."

The study noted, "Recent poll results report that only one-quarter of academic administrators believe that their campuses provide a "very good" or "excellent" climate for Black students; even fewer believe that their campus climates are supportive of Hispanic students."

The study also pointed out that "another national survey revealed that almost one-third (32 percent) of Black students had experienced racial harassment; 51 percent had heard faculty make inappropriate remarks regarding minority students."

The Southern Education Foundation is a nonprofit group that works to promote high-quality education in the South for Black and low-income residents.

The study, financed by the Ford Foundation, follows a 1992 Supreme Court ruling on desegregation and higher education in Mississippi. The new study was released on the 41st anniversary of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public elementary and secondary schools violated the U.S. Constitution.

In 1992, the Supreme Court applied that to public colleges, ruling that. Mississippi had not done enough to end segregation in its state universities by simply ending the legal system of segregation in its state university by simply ending the legal system of segregation. Instead, Mississippi also had to end "any policies traceable" to the old system that had a discriminatory effect.

For example, the court found Mississippi had perpetuated segregation by relying on standardized tests, which discriminated against Blacks, for admission to its "flagship" historically White colleges.

Other findings include:

* In the 1-2 states studied, only 53 percent of Black students who took a common college-entrance test had taken courses recommended for college preparation, compared with 67 percent of White test-takers.

* In eight of the states studied, fewer than 10 percent of Black first-time freshmen students had enrolled in their state's "flagship" university. In 10 of the states, more than 60 percent of Black first-time freshmen attended historically Black colleges or community colleges.