WASHINGTON – Institutional racism, White supremacy and anti-Black attitudes fuel underrepresentation of Black students on college and university campuses across the United States, with access a battle constantly being waged in legal courts and the court of public opinion, according to an academic who addressed the 58th annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools this week.
But there is hope because today’s students appear determined to hold institutions of higher learning to their promises to live up to their stated ideals regarding diversity and access, said Dr. Walter Allen, the Allan Murray Carter Professor of Higher Education and Distinguished Professor of Education, Sociology and African-American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Anti-Black sentiments are major drivers in inequality, enrollment and degree completion in higher education,” Allen told the gathering’s 700 attendees from 13 nations and five continents at a plenary in an Omni Shoreham ballroom. The four-day conference, which features a wide range of speakers and sessions, concludes Saturday.
Allen’s prepared remarks Thursday morning, which centered on Black student degree enrollment and completion from 1976 to 2015, reflected his research background. He used data to reinforce his point that despite much diversity talk and some strong effort, key numbers remain dismal for Black students and overall progress is elusive.
Anti-affirmative action efforts are a factor in “severe” underrepresentation of Black undergraduate and graduate students at many colleges, particularly flagship schools, he said. The problem originates in continued segregation and subjugation of Blacks in broader society, as noted in the federal Kerner Commission report of 1968, and policies and practices in higher education perpetuate the problem, Allen said.
While Black students are 15 percent of the student population at private four-year schools, he noted, they are only 11 percent of student bodies at public four-year schools. Further, Black students constitute 10 percent of total degree enrollment and completion at only three flagship schools in the nation, even though Black people are 15 percent of the population in 14 states and more than 25 percent of the population in six states.
Black student underrepresentation can be better understood by considering critical race theory and legal context, Allen suggested. He cited research data about full-time Black student enrollment and completion at all levels of public higher education over a 40-year period in the 20 states with the largest numbers of Black residents. The numbers – always “stubbornly low,” he said – declined.
