Month: December 2010

The Revolutionary Paideia 2010 Person of the Year: Oprah Winfrey

Revolutionary Paideia is proud to name Oprah Winfrey as its inaugural Person of the Year. Each year, Revolutionary Paideia will select a Person of the Year who embodies the spirit of “unsettling, unnerving, and unhousing” that founded this blog. The person has to comprehensively represent that spirit too. Oprah Winfrey is truly deserving of this award because she has achieved such greatness in the face of such opposition. Oprah has done things her way and has not focused on those who have been passionately trying to change her. Revolutionary Paideia is always proud of those who are willing to be themselves, especially when those people continue to be themselves when individuals harshly criticize and attack them for being themselves. In 25 years of service, Oprah has received some of the harshest criticism and most vicious attacks known to man. Her success has far surpassed harsh criticism and vicious attacks.

Oprah could end the final season of her unmatched The Oprah Winfrey Show and do nothing else and she would still be one of the greatest people to ever live. She has decided to take a significant risk and start her own network, The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Although she acknowledges that starting her own network could end up being a colossal failure, she is not afraid to experience this potential colossal failure. This woman has to be applauded for her courage because when you’re at the top of your game it takes great courage to risk it all for yet another investment in potential greatness.

Oprah has been through so much in her life, but God has saw fit for her to experience the fullness of life in exchange for her being willing to not allow the Devil to defeat her.

People can say what they want to about Oprah but the key to her success has been her faith in God and her willingness to be a cheerful giver. This woman has helped people to launch successful careers (Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, Dr. Oz, and etc.). Oprah has given her entire studio audience cars that have not even come out on the market for other consumers to purchase. Her audience members were ecstatic, of course. Oprah was even more excited than they were. She was happy to be in a position where she could give to so many people and make a significant difference in their lives. Being a cheerful giver and making a difference in the lives of others is what it’s all about.

I wish Oprah great success in all of her future endeavors. It is a great pleasure to name her The Revolutionary Paideia 2010 Person of the Year.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Revolutionary Paideia December 2010 Person of the Month: Michael Vick

Each month, Revolutionary Paideia selects one person who embodies the “unsettling, unnerving, and unhousing” spirit that founded this blog. In life, we all make mistakes and we will always make mistakes as long as we live. When we make mistakes, we have to learn from them and recover from those mistakes better than ever. Michael Vick, the former quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons and current quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, has learned from his mistakes and has a truly powerful comeback success story. Michael Vick went to prison and served his time for dog fighting. Since he has been released from prison for dog fighting, he has worked with animal rights groups and has educated young children about the importance of treating animals properly, drawing from the lessons of his own experiences. Michael Vick has not allowed his past mistakes to keep him from being a successful quarterback in the National Football League (NFL).

Although the NFL will probably award the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award to Tom Brady, the quarterback of the New England Patriots, because he has a better team record, what Michael Vick has been able to accomplish is certainly more impressive than what Brady has done. Michael Vick is the most exciting player in the league and makes people, even those who are not Eagles fans, want to see him play. For those who questioned whether Michael Vick could ever be a good pocket-passer, he has surpassed those expectations. Vick is making all of his haters look stupid.

For those who refuse to give Michael Vick a chance to redeem himself, I find people like you to be simply ignorant. What if people never gave you a chance to redeem yourself after the many mistakes you have made? I bet you would be very unhappy about that.

I am tremendously proud of what Michael Vick has been able to accomplish this year. He has had to combat great criticism and pressures, but this negativity has not stopped Vick from being the most electrifying player in the NFL. Vick serves an example for all people who have made serious mistakes that you can come back better than ever from those mistakes if you would only give yourself the chance. Some people want Vick to crawl into a hole and never come back, but I’m glad that he has enough inner strength to not succumb to their hateful desires.

Although I have forgiven the Atlanta Falcons and Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons, for how unjustly they treated Michael Vick, I refuse to ever support the Falcons. I know that being from Georgia I should support the Falcons but I cannot bring myself to support an organization that exploited a man like Vick when the going got tough. The organization simply threw him under the bus. I cheer against the Falcons in every game that they play. I do this in honor of Michael Vick. I was so happy to see the Falcons lose at home against the New Orleans Saints on Monday night. I know Vick had to smile wherever he was when the Falcons lost to the Saints (#WhoDat).

It is my pleasure to name Michael Vick The Revolutionary Paideia December 2010 Person of the Month. Revolutionary Paideia encourages Vick to continue to achieve at the highest level even in the face of great hate.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Postmodern Plantation System: The NCAA and Black Male Student-Athletes

Slavery is not over. Colleges and universities collectively make billions of dollars off of the athletic prowess of Black male student-athletes, but these institutions will not even give them adequate academic support in return. Many people will say that they receive free tuition and room and board and will think that they should be happy with this, considering most undergraduates don’t have this advantage. I would just like to inform people who think like this that most student-athletes don’t receive scholarships, free tuition, and room and board—only a select few receive free tuition and room and board. Even if all student-athletes were to magically be given free tuition and room and board, this would still represent a classic Marxian uneven exchange. Think about it—they provide these institutions with billions of dollars and these institutions give them free tuition and room and board in return—simply inequitable. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the governing body that oversees intercollegiate athletics, contends that paying student-athletes would be a horrible thing to do. However, the NCAA and higher education institutions do not think that it’s horrible to pay Teaching Assistants. Why not simply make graduate students teach for free as a part of their degree requirements? Exactly! They know that graduate students are too sophisticated and too politically organized to allow themselves to be exploited in such a way.

Just as those Teaching Assistants receive free tuition and a monthly stipend in return for their service, institutions should give all student-athletes monthly stipends in return for their service. Many athletic departments require student-athletes to do community service projects, visit sick children in hospitals, and other charitable things, but they are not paid a dime for this service—the athletic departments simply get to benefit from the charity of these student-athletes.

Billy Hawkins, Kinesiology professor at the University of Georgia, has written a book, The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly NCAA Institutions (2010), that posits that predominantly White colleges and universities are functioning very much like the colonial plantations did during slavery. For Hawkins, Black male student-athletes are slaves at these predominantly White institutions. He does an excellent job of evincing how these institutions exploit Black male student-athletes academically and physically.

I do, however, disagree with Hawkins that these institutions are functioning very much like colonial plantations during slavery. In Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), Fredric Jameson asserts that we are currently residing in late capitalism, a stage of capitalism that makes it much more the global dominant and much more of a deceptively attractive economic system than it was during slavery in America. Therefore, the attempt Hawkins makes to evince how Black male student-athletes are similar to slaves during slavery in America ultimately fails because his central thesis needs to be informed by a serious understanding of late capitalism (postmodernism).

My notion of colleges and universities being postmodern plantations for Black male student-athletes is informed carefully by Fredric Jameson’s characterization of postmodernism (late capitalism). During slavery in America, Black people knew without a doubt that they were slaves. Black male student-athletes do not know that they are slaves today. Many are given scholarships that pay their tuition and room and board, but this uneven exchange exploits them in academic, economic, and physical ways that are much more dishonest than during the colonial plantation system. The focus that Hawkins devotes to making connections between the treatment of slaves during slavery to the treatment of Black male student-athletes in our postmodern period are important, but he misses how much more sophisticated colleges and universities have developed the postmodern plantation.

Predominantly White colleges and universities have made most Black student-athletes think that they are happy because they get to play the sports they enjoy, get free tuition and housing, and have a chance to compete professionally. During slavery, most slaves were not happy just receiving the bare minimums. Free tuition and room and board are the bare minimums today.

The NCAA is a cartel. This despicable governing body is only interested in helping colleges and universities to keep getting richer so that the executive leadership of the NCAA can keep getting richer. The NCAA is the force that allows this postmodern plantation system to persist and that makes the postmodern plantation system increasingly more dominant. The refusal of the NCAA to allow student-athletes to be given stipends in exchange for participating in intercollegiate athletic sports is a deliberate attempt to exploit not only Black male student-athletes but all student-athletes.

The least that these predominantly White colleges and universities can do is give student-athletes enough money in the form of stipends to pay for their own private tutors, tutors outside of the athletic department.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Thugs

Across America, many Black boys are increasingly embracing the “thug life.” Once they reach adulthood, this embracement of the thug life persists. Although I understand that in the postmodern epoch there are various notions of what a thug is, all of these notions are ultimately harmful to Black boys. From the earliest age possible, Black boys need to have greater expectations from their parents than for them to live a thug life. It’s not enough to say that you keep your boys away from hip-hop music and violent video games and movies. Those things are not really what you should primarily concern yourself with. You should concentrate more on helping them to establish a pathway for a successful life. This could mean that even before the child enters into kindergarten, you begin to stress the importance of education to him or her and you become actively involved in his or her education. As soon as possible, begin to talk to your child about going to college or getting some post-secondary training. You can teach your child to be a hustler but being a hustler does not have to have criminality attached to it. Many of the best living Black men in America are hustlers in their own right—Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Dr. Cornel West, Jerry Rice, Bishop T.D. Jakes, President Barack Obama, John Edgar Wideman, John Legend, Richard Dean Parsons, J.C. Watts, Colin Powell, Wayne Brady, and Montel Williams. Now, I’m not saying that these men are perfect—none of us are. I’m also not saying that they did not have struggles, setbacks, and challenges because they all did.  The one thing they all had was a determination to be successful and not thugs. They all had people in their lives, including their parents, who were willing to love them enough to help them develop a mindset focused on success.

I’m not trying to tell you exactly how to rear your children—I’m not qualified to do this. What I’m doing, however, is telling you that your children deserve to have parents who are committed to their success. They need you from birth to help them to understand how to be successful and to assist them with creating a pathway to success—this I’m qualified to tell you about. Every child deserves a chance to succeed!

A number of the Black boys who I grew up with and went to school with embraced deviant behavior even in kindergarten and many of their parents would get angry with the teachers and principals for exposing their poor behavior. Instead of the parents working to improve these boys’ behavior, they simply blamed the teachers and principals for their behavior. These parents needed to face the fact that their boys were simply exhibiting poor behavior. This poor behavior persisted for many of these Black boys into their teenage years where many became involved in using and selling drugs, having babies out of wedlock, getting sent to jail or youth detention centers, dropping out of school, and etc. I have to admit that some of their parents really tried to prevent them from getting involved in these things, but the boys elected to continue on with the poor behavior that they had engaged in since they were in kindergarten. Their parents never broke the cycle of poor behavior. Their parents did not stop them then and now that they were teenagers they embraced their deviant behavior as acceptable conduct.

These same boys now venerate bling bling over education. They treasure dope over hope. Why? Because they needed parents to give them positive examples of success when they were old enough to begin to understand notions of success. They needed to benefit from parents who made a serious commitment to establish a structure in the home that was geared toward success. They needed parents who did not mind saying to them that they were not rearing thugs!

As a community, we have to take the success of all Black boys into our hands when parents are not doing even to prevent their boys from becoming thugs. We have to be willing to tell them and show them what success is. We have to be willing to model success for them. It’s not enough for you to simply walk around and criticize these Black boys. When you see a Black boy who is not demonstrating the values, principles, and actions of a burgeoning successful man, then do what you can to help the boy. This may mean that you need to go talk to his parents and express an interest in investing in his future by doing things with him that are going to facilitate a successful life for him.

It’s time for us to reclaim our Black boys from futures dominated by incarceration, disease, gang activity, dope dealing, and robbery. I have committed my life to progressing Black boys and men to be the successes they deserve to be. What are you doing, could be doing, and/or willing to do to help Black boys and men to experience more successful lives?

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Race in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

In The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison’s first novel, the reader encounters Pecola Breedlove, the protagonist of the novel who has to confront the dominant culture’s oppressive standard of beauty. As Morrison’s narrative is situated in 1941, this time period featured tremendous racial discrimination against African-Americans. Since the dominant culture’s standard of beauty did not allow African-Americans in 1941 to be considered as beautiful because of their dark (non-white) skin color, Pecola Breedlove experiences great racial shame, resulting from this oppressive standard of beauty. She desires to be liberated from the manacles of race. Pecola does not long to be considered simply beautiful; she desires to be the most beautiful person. Therefore, in order to become the most beautiful person, Pecola aspires to have the bluest eye (a physical characteristic of the dominant culture) to enable her to escape the oppressive bondage and limitations that race places on her ability to see herself as the most beautiful individual. For Pecola, the only way that she sees that she will be able to be perceived as beautiful is to live imaginatively in a world where she does have the bluest eye—biologically impossible in the world in which she physically resides. In helping the reader to understand how Pecola perceives how the dominant culture views her, Morrison writes: “She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness. All things are in her are flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes” (49).

Although Peocla is able to see the “distaste” that the dominant culture has for her “blackness,” Morrison is able to offer readers one of her most pervasive themes that permeate all of her novels: African-Americans must seek alternatives to the oppressive social reality that the social construction of race has caused them to experience. While Morrison’s narrative interrogates salient issues surrounding race through Pecola, her focus on the racial shame of Claudia McTeer, one of Pecola’s closest friends and the novel’s narrator, operates powerfully in illuminating her multifarious and nuanced ways of exploring race in The Bluest Eye.

One of the most important ways in which Morrison has Claudia McTeer to interface with the theme of race is through her interaction with Maureen Peal, a young African-American female of a brighter hue than Claudia and Pecola. Through the interactions between Claudia and Maureen, the reader learns that Claudia has internalized her racial shame and she does not want Pecola to reveal her racial shame in the presence of Maureen. In a pivotal encounter where Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda (Claudia’s sister) have an argument with Maureen about Maureen’s claim that light-complexioned blacks are beautiful and dark-complexioned blacks are ugly, Pecola’s disheartened and silent reaction that endorses the claim that Maureen espouses about the relationship between skin color and beauty unveils and accentuates Claudia’s great internalized racial shame. In demonstrating her tremendous indignation for Pecola’s conspicuous endorsement of Maureen’s reprehensible claim, Claudia states, “She seemed to fold into herself, like a pleated wing. Her pain antagonized me. I wanted to open her up, crisp her edges, ram a stick down that hunched and curving spine, force her to stand erect and spit the misery out on the street” (73). Claudia’s internalized racial shame is vividly clear as she expresses her anger with Pecola for giving Maureen’s disgraceful claim the validity that Maureen hopes that it will be given. While Claudia and Frieda attempt to conceal their racial shame through their incensed retorts to Maureen’s claim, Claudia becomes increasingly angry with Pecola because she identifies with the transparent way in which Pecola sinks under “the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance” of Maureen’s shameful and painful claim (74).

Morrison’s treatment of racial shame in the novel enables her readers to not only unearth the significant psychological impact of Pecola and Claudia perceiving themselves as racially inferior, but her larger use of the theme of race also affords readers an opportunity to understand the oppressive economic, social, and cultural milieu and problems that have plagued blacks historically. Pecola and Claudia are two of the most important characters Morrison employs in the novel to offer critical revelations about race. The novel is an instructive denunciation of the social construction of race.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

You Gotta Love Me to Improve Me: The Cry of Black Male Students

The extant professional literature has extensively evinced that Black male students academically underperform all students throughout the educational pipeline (See Jerlando F.L. Jackson’s “Toward Administrative Diversity: An Analysis of the African-American Male Educational Pipeline”). Limited research exists on what impact the level of love teachers have for the profession has on Black male students’ learning outcomes. People will ask how are you going to measure love for the profession. One of the important ways to measure a teacher’s love for the profession is to ask him or her how important of a problem is it to him or her that Black male students academically underperform all students throughout the educational pipeline. Next, one can ask the teacher what is he or she doing to ameliorate this problem. I think that gaining answers from teachers on those two questions are important steps to gaining a qualitative understanding of where teachers stand on the problem of Black male academic underachievement.

Given that America has been a historically racist nation and continues to be a racist nation, I contend that it is vital to engage White teachers with queries that seek to understand how they feel about the quandary of Black male academic underachievement. In no way am I trying to call all White teachers racists. It’s just a reality that most students are educated by White teachers in America. The existing scholarly literature needs to benefit from qualitative research that examines the perceptions of White teachers about the problem of Black male academic underachievement. We need to understand what percentage of them really views this as a serious problem. We also need to know why White teachers think this problem exists. These questions need to be asked to White teachers because we need to uncover the level of investment they have in Black male students throughout the educational pipeline.

It is very possible that one of the foremost contributing factors to Black male academic underachievement could be many White teachers’ lack of a strong investment in Black male academic success. As we look to further identify the most significant factors that contribute to Black male academic underachievement, we cannot be afraid to ask questions that might be offensive to people. If people get offended when you are solemnly exploring questions aimed at buttressing Black male academic achievement, then that’s just tough for them. It seems that there are not enough people getting offended about Black males academically lagging behind all students throughout the educational pipeline. That’s what we need to get offended about! Therefore, if you get offended when I start asking you whether or not you really love Black male students, then you will just have to be offended.

I am not going to let Black teachers off the hook either. If you really love the members of your community and are looking to uplift your community, then what are you doing to advance Black male education? What are you doing to support positive educational experiences and outcomes for Black males? What are you doing special for them to meet their special realities? I don’t want to hear this crap about having to treat them the same as everyone else. If you have that kind of mindset, then you really don’t care about them because they are not just like everyone else—they are the most academically underperforming students throughout every grade level.

I encourage you to do whatever you can to help to ameliorate Black male academic achievement throughout the educational pipeline. We can keep more Black men off the streets, out of gangs, out of prisons, and off of drugs when we take the initiative to dedicate ourselves more to ensuring that they have positive educational experiences and outcomes. I will continue to posit that the American education system is failing until I see a substantial improvement in Black male academic achievement throughout the educational pipeline. Black boys and men are worth more than the gargantuan profits they can produce for you on football fields and basketball courts.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Online Education, Students of Color, and Access to Higher Education


Many people of color simply have circumstances that do not allow them to attend traditional brick and mortar higher education institutions. Fortunately, higher education has a strong online presence. Most traditional colleges and universities now offer some type of training and/or undergraduate and graduate degrees online. For example, at the University of Arkansas (www.uark.edu), one can select from a range of undergraduate and graduate degree programs (even doctoral degree programs). For students looking to attend a historically Black college or university, Albany State University (www.asurams.edu) offers undergraduate and graduate degrees online. Another traditional brick and mortar university that offers undergraduate and graduate degrees online is Troy University (www.troy.edu). For people of color looking to pursue higher education and need to benefit from the flexibility of not having to attend a college or university in person, I highly recommend you consider attending a college or university online. You may be thinking that you could attend college if only you could have the flexibility of not having to attend classes physically. This may be the thought of some people who think that their current jobs would interfere with them attending college.

In a post-affirmative action society, many students of color should really consider online education as a means of receiving training in higher education. You may not have the funds to live on campus, so it may benefit you to attend the college or university you plan to attend online. If you want to participate in student activities on campus, you can always drive to the physical campus—if the institution is near you.

One of the strongest reasons why I think online education can be one of the best ways to improve access to higher education is it reduces costs that accompany physically attending a college or university. For example, if you are attending college online, then you don’t have to worry about parking costs, increased fuel costs, having transportation to and from school, room and board expenses, and etc. For many people of color, these significant savings can make the difference in their ability to attend college.

Some acts of racism can be avoided by attending classes online. If you attend a predominantly White institution online, then you could avoid campus issues that involve race in undesirable ways.

For those interested in attending completely online universities that do not have challenging admission standards, then you might want to consider Walden University (www.waldenu.edu) and Argosy University (www.argosy.edu). Those two online universities are accredited by the same accreditors who accredit an elite university like the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Walden University and Argosy University are two quality online universities that some students of color who have not performed well coming out of high school or even undergrad should consider.

I am not trying to promote online education as the panacea to problems that students of color have with gaining increased access to higher education. Online education, however, is something we should consider when thinking about how to improve access to higher education for students of color.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Cam Newton Will Inevitably Return the Heisman Trophy

Auburn University quarterback Cameron Newton has had unquestionably one of the most phenomenal seasons in college football history. Without a doubt, Cam Newton has been the best player on the field this year. Unfortunately, the Heisman Trophy is about more than just being the best player on the field. You also have to demonstrate integrity off the field. Cam simply has not evinced integrity off the field. The NCAA has stated that Cecil Newton, Cam’s father, was found guilty of seeking out money in exchange for Cam’s signing with the team willing to offer the most money. He wanted this money to go into his pocket—not for his son’s education. Cam has repeatedly denied knowing that his father was seeking money in exchange for his attendance at the institution willing to give the most money. Please! He has repeatedly expressed how close he is with his father. Cam said that he was not disappointed with what his father did. What? Are you kidding me? The Heisman Trophy Trust still gave Cameron Newton the Heisman Trophy.

The Heisman Trophy Trust should have given the Heisman Trophy to another student-athlete who would have represented it with decency and integrity. Because of the evidence against Cam and more evidence potentially coming forth, the Heisman Trophy Trust should have learned from the Reggie Bush example that Cam should not be awarded the trophy. With all of the attention on Cam, the evidence that links him to knowledge about his father seeking money from schools on his behalf will come forth and other evidence too. Cam will be declared ineligible!

As a serious supporter of Black male college student-athletes, I would have loved to cherish the moment of him winning the Heisman Trophy, but I am not able to do this. The NCAA should have declared Cam ineligible to play and forfeited all of Auburn’s games this season. I have a history of supporting Black male college student-athletes, and have devoted my life to ameliorating the educational experiences and outcomes of Black male student-athletes. I cannot support Cam’s dishonesty and his off the field actions that dishonor the prestige and integrity of the Heisman Trophy. While people, including my mother, love Cam’s disarming smile and his consistent references to God, I can only wish that his smile and references to God would have been thought of when he was off the field engaging in all kinds of illegal actions.

Cecil Newton, you should be ashamed of yourself! You are supposed to be a man of God. You were not an example for your son.

The Heisman Trophy Trust needs to reform its eligibility rules for a student-athlete to be considered for the Heisman Trophy. The Heisman Trophy Trust cannot simply depend on rulings from the NCAA. With Cam Newton receiving the Heisman trophy on yesterday, the honor and prestige that the trophy symbolizes has been significantly diminished. Cam get ready to return the Heisman Trophy in the days to come!

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Private and Corporate Foundations and Students of Color

As discussed here https://revolutionarypaideia.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/higher-education-in-a-post-affirmative-action-society/, we must begin to think about how to ameliorate access to higher education for students of color, especially at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), in an epoch where affirmative action is waning and completely eradicated in some places. We are going to have to be more sophisticated and comprehensive about how we improve access to higher education for students of color in a post-affirmative action society. The use of private and corporate foundations is one serious way we can increase access to higher education for students of color. These foundations have to be encouraged to significantly increase the amount of funding they devote to helping minority students to be able to afford to attend college.

Top minority leaders and supporters have to engage in serious discourses with these foundations to have them to understand the importance of their larger support for minority students. If foundations are not willing to increase their financial support for minority students, then we have to be willing to cut off our support for them. People of color contribute so much to these corporations, and they are going to need to understand how vital it is for them to give back to these minorities. If people of color are good enough to take their money when they purchase your goods and services, then they are good enough to give back to when they need your support.

Now, I very much appreciate those foundations that have a history of supporting minority students. These individuals will need the continued and augmented support of these foundations. The traditional foundations that have helped students of color in the past will not be enough. More foundations are going to have to invest significant financial support in students of color to give them the necessary funding to pursue higher education. It will be highly important for researchers, especially researchers of color, to make compelling cases for why foundations need to give significantly more to minority students and how this increased giving benefits them in meaningful ways, including greater profitability for them.

Corporations that do not have foundations should be presented with ideas for starting them and with ways to fund increased access to higher education for minority students. For minority businesses that are able, they need to dedicate more money to increased access to higher for students of color.

I am not suggesting that the aforementioned ideas are panaceas, but they are ways to generate improved access to higher education for students of color. They also let us know that we have to show up and be heard by the leaders of these private and corporate foundations. The least we can do is increase our requests for greater financial support from these foundations. If they are not willing to enhance their support for students of color, then we will have at least publicly exposed that potential reality. Let’s explore more ideas like these, instead of simply focusing on affirmative action.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Higher Education in a Post-Affirmative Action Society

Too much attention has been devoted to whether or not affirmative action should be used in higher education. Many court cases have emerged surrounding the constitutionality of affirmative action. What is missing, however, is a serious exploration of what to do when affirmative action is no longer legally acceptable. When one carefully examines affirmative action, he or she can gain an understanding that affirmative action is an inadequate attempt to achieve racial and social justice in the first place. In Race Matters, Cornel West avowed this argument but made clear that affirmative action is still a small, yet significant step in the journey to achieving racial and social justice. With affirmative action being eliminated in some states and being weakened by the courts, this should not be perceived as an epoch when achieving a more diverse student and faculty population in higher education is impossible. There never should have been such an emphasis placed on affirmative action to generate an unremittingly more diverse student and faculty population in higher education. While I am not positing that affirmative action is not important, it is more useful to dedicate more time to many of the larger principles and values that gave rise to use of affirmative action in higher education. Equity and access were central to the formulation and implementation of affirmation action in higher education.

Just because we are witnessing the waning of affirmative action in higher education, does not mean that we should not be actively advocating for improved equity and access for minority students and faculty in higher education. We are going to have to approach ameliorating student and faculty diversity comprehensively. In Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson contended that one of the defining characteristics of postmodernism is a general celebration of fragmentation. Jameson asserted that postmodern people have a general skepticism toward seeking wholeness—totality. A serious effort to resist fragmentary thought has to accompany any critical effort to bolster student and faculty diversity in higher education. We are not going to augment student and faculty diversity in higher education if we do not champion institutionalizing improved equity and access for people of color.

One of the first things we need to do to increase the number of racial and ethnic minority students and faculty in higher education is to make an honest commitment to train educational leaders for racial and social justice. Teachers, curriculum directors, and administrators have to have an understanding of why diversity is important, and they must understand why knowledge about what racial and social justice is crucial to helping higher education institutions become more reflective of the larger society. While teachers, curriculum directors, and administrators are receiving undergraduate and graduate training, we have to let Schools of Education know that racial and social justice training needs to be an integral part of the education they receive. Students need to have a practical understanding of what racial and social justice is. At this point, minorities cannot afford for racial and social justice to be mere vocabulary words. Professors in Schools of Education have to let our future administrators, teachers, and curriculum directors know that their research, policies, and practices should be informed by racial and social justice.

Chief Diversity Officers at predominantly White colleges and universities have to offer professional development training for other administrators and professors about how to respond effectively to the diverse students they serve. These institutions must offer meaningful incentives for White professors and administrators to buy into the need for racial and social justice to be central to everything their institutions do. Schools of Education need to inform future professors, curriculum directors, and administrators about critical race theory (CRT). Engaging students with CRT gives them an opportunity to see why race must be central to all that they do in the future as educational leaders.

Higher education administrators are going to have to work harder to make sure that their predominately White institutions (PWIs) are spaces that are welcoming to all students. They must make sure their institutions are structurally welcoming to students and faculty of color. In “Nine Themes in Campus Racial Climates and Implications for Institutional Transformation,” Shaun R. Harper and Sylvia Hurtado found in over 15 years of published research that PWIs are not seriously trying to become welcoming places for people of color. One of the significant themes they found was that whiteness dominated in space, curricula, and activities at PWIs.  Higher education administrators, therefore, have to make sure that there is a greater presence of blackness in space, curricula, and activities.

At the end of the day, higher education administrators are going to have to engage in serious efforts to promote diversity at the admissions stage of the higher education pipeline. It is a social reality that access largely refers to admissions. More focused study and commitment is needed to significantly increase the number of qualified minorities who attend PWIs.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one the leading research universities in the nation and world, there is an African-American student population that is less than 2%. This is pathetic—when one considers that near this institution is Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which has a significant African-American population. I am not advocating for institutions like the University of Wisconsin-Madison to admit unqualified African-American students, but the institution can certainly do much better than the less than 2% African-American student population it currently has. You can read more about my outrage at the lack of student diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a major Wisconsin newspaper here: http://badgerherald.com/news/2009/04/28/recertification_in_p.php.

Instead of arguing about affirmative action, we need to focus our attention on achieving the optimal goal of affirmative action: true racial and social justice. Racial and ethnic minorities in higher education are going to have to recognize that we need to leave discourses about affirmative action and move to discourses about racial and social justice. If we don’t do this, then we will see an exponential decline in people of color in higher education.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison