Word: blacking
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...April, my tenure at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics was briefly interrupted long enough for me, as President of the National Congress of Black Faculty, to chair our national meeting in Washington, D.C. The delegates there applauded the many initiatives by colleges and universities around the country to increase the number of African-American faculty members...
Despite the relatively small available pool of Black faculty, there are still approximately 18,000 today. Since many Ivy League institutions are able to afford the best and brightest of any faculty, the supply question should be mitigated by their resources. So the logical reason which has emerged for the dearth of Black faculty is that they are not "the best" in their fields--or, the meritocracy argument all over again...
...which has utilized this criteria in order to historically maintain racial domination, such that objective justice dictates that Harvard should erect a corrective standard which provides equal opportunity. However, if one reads the responses of Harvard's academic leaders to the Report submitted by the University's Association of Black Faculty and Staff, there is a grudging admission that the situation is not yet just. So, the existence of diversity as a legitimate principle which guides the institution is in doubt...
...with respect to the issue of faculty diversity. To some extent, this view is similar to that of those who have struggled so mightily for the Harvard Corporation to divest its stock in companies that are in South Africa. However, in the case of hiring a fair number of Black faculty, there cannot be an analogous counter-argument suggesting that an immediate loss would accrue to the University in any regard--which makes the situation all the more puzzling. Some faculty have tried lamely to suggest that affirmative action breeds Black dependence upon whites, but this smacks of the same...
Most important for the intellectual health of the University, the attitude toward the inclusion of African-American faculty as a legitimizing factor for the Black person and the Black intellectual tradition (not to mention the research which suggests their critical role in the matriculation of Black students) may be a bellweather of openness to other trends...