University of Virginia Library

Everyone Else's Bad Example

The title of the symposium held by St.
Paul's Student Vestry Sunday night was "The
Black Student at the White University." As
might have been expected, however, the
conversation centered, from the very
beginning, on the problem of the absence of
black students at the University rather than
on the problems of those few who are here.
This was a logical re-orientation for the
symposium, though, for most of the problems
of the black students at the white University
spring directly from the lack of more of them
here.

There are approximately 40 or 50 full-time
black students at the University in
Charlottesville. There are approximately 7800
or 8000 full-time students at the University in
Charlottesville. That means that
approximately six-tenths of one per cent of the
full-time, enrollment of the University in
Charlottesville is black. And the purpose of
the University is to prepare its students for
the world outside.

The administration is anything but
oblivious to the University's absurd failure to
meet current national standards of
non-discrimination or integration or whatever
you choose to call it - it has a perfect record
of formally discountenancing discrimination
by anyone associated with it, of publicly
withholding its public funds from anyone who
discriminates, of piously being offended at all
charges of discrimination or racism leveled at
it, of trying to locate housing for its black
members - it has a perfect record, as one
panelist put it Sunday night, of formally and
politely opposing discrimination;
consequently, it has a perfect record of doing
nothing of any significance to work away
from tokenism of the most odious sort toward
legitimate, representative, realistic, real
non-discrimination as would be manifested by
a numerically balanced community. For an
administrator to talk about how hard and how
sincerely the University works toward getting
more black students, faculty, administrators,
and other employees is no less hypocritical
than it is for a follower of George Wallace to
assert that his candidate is not racist. That
should be obvious enough, for sincere efforts
made in the quantities we are told they are
made should certainly bring at least some
results.

The point is this: the University has
regularly declared its opposition to discrimination,
but it has regularly failed to take an
active role against discrimination anywhere,
much less on its own Grounds. To fail to take
such an active role, especially on these
Grounds, is, in effect, to practice the discrimination
so vociferously - and so formally -
opposed.

The administration pretends to want to
establish a more normal or reasonable society
here, but it does so in the smug security of its
knowledge that there is no danger of that as
long as everything which might bring it about
is left undone. Proof of this is readily
available.

Black students and others who are
concerned about the problem have said again
and again that the all-important first step the
University should take if it is to attract any
black students is to hire a full-time black
admissions officer just for that purpose. The
Student Council made such a
recommendation eight months ago and has
been actively pushing it ever since, all to no
avail. The foregone conclusion of the crowd at
the symposium Sunday night was that until
such a step is taken there can be absolutely no
hope of any improvement. It is in the face of
all this knowledge and prodding that the
University still refuses to budge.

Let us investigate possible reasons for its
failure to do so. The one most likely to be
heard around here is that the University's
policy of non-discrimination does not allow it
to discriminate either way; such an opinion,
or such a policy, is clearly racist in effect,
simply because only reverse discrimination
can counteract the discrimination of decades.
Those who refuse to allow or tolerate the
reverse discrimination implicit in hiring a man
just to recruit black students do so with the
full knowledge that as nature left alone takes
its course in an officially bilaterally
non-discriminatory university such as this,
that course is bound to be one of
discrimination. The evidence is everywhere.

Another reason heard all-too often is the
supposed unavailability of a "qualified" man
to serve as the black recruiter for the
University. Our answer to that is "Seek, and
ye shall find," or, "When there's a will there's
a way;" unfortunately, whether or not there's
a will seems to be the problem. There are
plenty of Negroes around who could meet
whatever qualifications might be set (which is
an issue in itself) who could be persuaded to
accept such a position - if there were a will to
attract them.

An extension of that reason is that the
University's policy of using faculty members
who teach classes as administrators would
preclude the possibility of a man hired just for
admissions; but it was discovered Sunday
night that, for various reasons, at least two of
the admissions officers have not taught a class
for the last two sessions and that no
admissions officer ever teaches in the fall
semester. There are plenty of
"administrators" around who never teach,
anyway.

Even if the University's policy and its
record of compliance therewith did, in fact,
require that every admissions officer be an
active educator, we suggest that any man
hired for the purpose of getting more Negroes
in the student body would be performing a
part of the educational function far more vital
than is performed by the average classroom
teacher. This University is not educating
anyone about the realities of life beyond it; it
is rather a study in the suppression and
repression of progress, the tolerance of
prejudice, the furtherance of a sick heritage. It
directs its advantages only to a certain
segment of society, and excluded from those
advantages is a modern education in step with
a changing world. It makes no effort to keep
up with that changing world; it rather prefers
to let things stay like they are. The losers:
every potential black Wahoo who goes to a
school of lesser academic standing, and every
student, faculty member, and administrator
who goes to this school of high academic
standing.

If that were not enough, the University
adds to it all a hypocrisy which can spring
only from trying to defend indefensible
positions or from trying to reconcile
irreconcilable "ideals." The University has
three options: it can try to convince everyone
of the sincerity of those formal
proclamations; it can sincerely pursue the
ideals expressed in those proclamations by
making every effort to enroll many more
black students; or it can admit its preference
to "let well enough alone," as long as the
standards for federal funds are met.

The third option would make the
University honest again, but it would, of
course, be challenged immediately. The first
option is what it is doing now, but it is failing
because its actions do not support its words
and it thus becomes painfully hypocritical. So
the only logical course left is the middle one
- actively to seek to get more Negro students
enrolled - and the consensus is that the first
step toward doing so is to hire a black
admissions officer. Alumni or not, such a
course is certainly the least painful before the
world, for nothing is quite so embarrassing as
is being used universally as a bad example.