Marybeth Gasman, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a regular contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s “Innovations” blog, invariably writing on the triumphs and successes of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Her column yesterday, “Black Male Student Success in Higher Education: Implications for HBCU’s,” discusses “a major report on black male student success” by her Penn colleague, Shaun Harper.
He has been working on this report and collecting data on black male achievers for years now and this report is the most comprehensive information we have on the topic. Harper pushes back against the deficit model typically applied to black men and most minorities and shows us how these young men achieve success academically, socially, and personally. The report should be read by faculty and administrators across the country and should also be given to students as it offers a sense of inspiration and empowerment.
Curiously, Gasman does not provide a link to Harper’s report, but it can be found here. She is interested particularly in what Harper’s research on successful black students (his sample was 219 black males with GPAs of 3.0 or above and demonstrated campus leadership) can “tell us about black male success at HBCU’s.” I looked in vain in her article (and in the report) for any discussion of the harmful and education-impairing effects of the lack of “diversity” at HBCUs, but the only reference I found was an interesting discussion of the lack of tolerance for sexual diversity. According to Gasman,
both the heterosexual and openly gay participants thought there were substantial social risks connected to being gay and being “out” on HBCU campuses. The majority of participants felt other African American students would ostracize them, vote against them in campus elections, or discredit their leadership ability. Although these fears were expressed by participants attending both majority institutions and HBCU’s, they were most pronounced on HBCU campuses. Research tells us that gay and lesbian students on HBCU campuses have fewer allies and less access to services aimed at helping them explore their identities.
Harper found the same lack of tolerance in black male groups on the non-HBCU campuses as well.
One shortcoming of Black male student groups is that they tend to not be viewed as welcoming or affirming spaces for gay male students and others whose behaviors may seem inconsistent with hegemonic masculine norms. Advisors and group leaders should challenge members to foster a culture that is inclusive of all masculinities and forms of diversity among Black undergraduate men.
What I found by far the most interesting about Harper’s findings, however, was what his subjects at non-HBCU institutions (both small liberal arts colleges and large research universities) said about what I think can be reasonably described only as the high emotional and psychological cost of affirmative action on black students. Harper, for example, emphasized the “toxic campus racial climates” and the “stereotypes and racial encounters” that apparently all of his subjects experienced.
Harper mentioned that he had written earlier about a phenomenon he called “onlyness,” defined as “the psychoemotional burden of having to strategically navigate a racially politicized space occupied by few peers, role models, and guardians from one’s same racial or ethnic group.” The picture he paints is not pretty.
Onlyness engendered a profound sense of pressure to be the spokesperson or ambassador for people of color in general and Black men in particular. Being one of few Black men with whom White students and professors interacted led to a set of common experiences that threatened the participants’ achievement and sense of belonging. Despite being among the most visible and actively engaged student leaders on campus, men interviewed for this study were not exempt from racism, stereotypes, and racial insults. Several participants were presumed to be academically underprepared. Therefore, their White peers picked them last (if at all) for group projects, and professors were surprised (and sometimes skeptical) when they did well on assignments. Even those with near-perfect high school and college GPAs talked about how their White classmates made remarks like, “The only reason you got into this university is because of affirmative action.” Consistent with findings from other research on Black achievers in college (Bonner II, 2010; Fries-Britt & Griffin, 2007; Strayhorn, 2009), participants at the predominantly white institutions felt pressure to prove they were admitted because of their intellectual prowess, not their race. The achievers also described how they were constantly asked which sport they played. Some had grown accustomed to being congratulated repeatedly on Mondays if the football or basketball team beat its weekend opponent. Moreover, numerous White students seemed certain that the achievers were rap and hip-hop music connoisseurs, spoke and understood slang, could teach them how to dance, or knew where they could purchase marijuana. Regardless of their backgrounds, it was usually assumed by peers and professors alike that the participants grew up in high-poverty urban ghettos and fatherless homes….
Unfortunately, and unrecognized here, if the “predominantly white institutions” mentioned above had affirmative action admissions, then it is almost certainly true that at least some of the participants “got into [their] university … because of affirmative action,” not “because of their intellectual prowess.” Moreover, if black students are routinely admitted because they are “different” — if they weren’t, they couldn’t perform their assigned role of providing “diversity” to the whites and Asians — it is hardly surprising, or evidence of toxic racism, that many whites on campus will regard them as … different.
Affirmative action, however, is an equal opportunity imposer of “psychosocial burden[s]” — it calls into question the achievements of those who needed no affirmative action preference as well as of those who did.
Treating all students “without regard” to their race would eliminate many of these problems, but then doing so would also eliminate many of the now-entrenched “diversity” bureaucracies and most of the educrats who now thrive on studying, maintaining, and ministering to racial “difference.”
