Someone at the University of Washington must be terminal.
Why would I say such a thing?
Because of the recent increase in celebrations held by the purple and gold one, around racial inequality on campus.
Last week the UW was falling over themselvesto give honorary degrees to its Japanese students it dismissed to internment camps 66 years ago (most of which are now dead so it doesn’t really make a damn bit of difference), and this week it’s remembering that it didn’t doesn’t give a shit about admitting Black folks.
40 years ago Black students staged a sit in on campus which ‘led’ to increased recruitment of minority students, and services which would support them once they made it to campus.
The UW just loves to portray itself as progressive and all of that, but it’s not.
It boasts about it’s now 29% students of color, but that number doesn’t mean anything.
It credits its Black student union for being a leader all those years ago, and even still today.
But it’s a crock of shit. Black students are dwindling in numbers, hence the focus on the overall minority population of 29 % and not the Black population alone.
Fuck the past! the UW has bigger, more current fish to fry. What about I-200? What about the steady decrease of under represented students of color, particularly Black students.
Is the UW paving the way to fight for more Black student placement?
Nope.
Is the UW paving the way to offset the negative impact of 1-200 so it is not a baracade for Black students?
Nope.
So I say, shut the hell up and sit down.
Why focus on what went down 40 years ago when there are things right now that need to be taken care of?
Blacks on campus are few and far between.
And it’s shameful when, articles about the Black Student Union dominate local headlines, and then you go online to their webpage to find it hasn’t been updated since 2002, and the last time it posted a note to greads was in 2004.
It’s not the University of Washington, it’s the University of Whites Only.
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The view from his 12th-floor office is now serene for Larry Gossett, but it was a far different scene 40 years ago, a time when the future King County councilman was jailed for helping to organize a sit-in at Franklin High School.
Gossett’s role in the demonstration of black power, a movement that galvanized many African-Americans who wanted stronger activism and racial pride in a society that regarded them as Negroes, landed him and others behind bars.
He spent the night in a cell on the same floor as his current office in the King County Courthouse. The irony has gripped Gossett for years.
“There’s poetic justice in all this,” he said. “I was fighting for black empowerment.”
Seven weeks after his arrest, Gossett was involved in another confrontation — a sit-in by the Black Student Union in the offices of University of Washington President Charles Odegaard — that prompted the UW to more aggressively recruit minority and disadvantaged white students, hire more faculty and staff members of color and create a center for academic and cultural development of minorities.
The 40th anniversary of that May 20, 1968, demonstration was remembered Tuesday as part of a celebration of diversity.
Amid panel discussions and speeches, about 200 minority students were honored for making the dean’s list. The group was part of 900 or so students of color who earned academic honors, with the majority entering the UW through its equal opportunity program, Gossett said.
That a program exists to help recruit and retain minority students reflects “the significance of what we did 40 years ago,” he told an audience in Red Square.
The fruits of the initiatives launched four decades ago, and the challenges that remain, were discussed by current and former administrators and students during the celebration.
In 1968, students of color made up 4 percent of the UW’s enrollment. Today, that figure is 29 percent, with Asian-Americans making up the bulk. African-Americans make up about 3 percent of students today.
Diversity is an issue that reverberates with positive and negative connotations in higher education, depending on how it is handled by the university community, speakers said.
Even as the UW worked to make the campus more reflective of society, the movement was marginalized “when in fact, diversity is a university-wide responsibility,” said Nancy “Rusty” Barcelo, a former vice president of the Office of Minority Affairs.
She spoke on a panel with four other former or current vice presidents of that office — Samuel Kelly, Herman Lujan, Myron Apilado and Sheila Edwards Lange — since its creation.
Like the Women Studies Department, the minority enhancement program was “on the periphery,” Apilado said. “They never accepted us fully at the University of Washington.”
Lujan recalled being burned in effigy in Red Square because he proposed that minority students who could not pass basic English and math classes transfer to community college to earn those credits, then return to the UW.
He also talked about a student from the Spokane area who compiled a bleak grade-point average in high school but, given an opportunity and support, earned nearly straight A’s at the UW.
“That’s what (the Office of) Minority Affairs is all about,” Lujan said.
The voter approval of Initiative 200 in 1998 makes the UW’s diversity efforts more essential, speakers said. Among other prohibitions, I-200 outlawed the consideration of race in university admissions. To comply, the equal opportunity program, which allowed some minorities with grades and test scores lower than the strongest academic achievers to gain admittance, had to be redefined.
Former and current student leaders of color said the UW must guard against complacency and apathy, building on earlier successes for future generations.
Ross Braine, a member of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne tribes, was the only minority in his major when he graduated in forestry management last year. He works in the Office of Minority Affairs.
“My duty is to serve Natives (to) let them know it can be done,” he said.
Patent attorney Roy Diaz, who earned several degrees from the UW, including a doctorate in biophysics in 2002, recalled what Apilado told him years ago about building on the work of others: “You’re just a turtle on a very tall fence post — and you certainly didn’t get there yourself.”
As the oldest of 11 children in a family in the Nooksack Tribe, Precious Aure said she had to talk over others growing up.
“When I came here, I found my voice,” said Aure, a 2006 graduate.
Kelly, the first vice president of what later became the Office of Minority Affairs, said his military and community college background formed the basis for his belief that “anyone can make it if you try.”
“I’m not asking for a gift,” he said. “I (just) want poor people and people of color recognized.”
Lange, the current vice president for minority affairs and vice provost for diversity, expressed optimism that those students would succeed, given the opportunity.
“I’m encouraged by the next generation,” she said. “If they take a stand like students did 40 years ago … they can change the world.”
STUDENTS OF COLOR AT THE UW
1968
4%
TODAY
29%