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After World War II, elite private universities in the South faced growing calls for desegregation. Though, unlike at their peer public institutions, no federal court ordered these schools to admit black students and no troops arrived to protect access to the schools, to suggest that desegregation at these universities took place voluntarily would be misleading In Desegregating Private Higher Education in the South, Melissa Kean explores how leaders at five of the region’s most prestigious private universities–Duke, Emory, Rice, Tulane, and Vanderbilt–sought to strengthen their national position and reputation while simultaneously answering the increasing pressure to end segregation. To join the upper echelon of U. S. universitie
“Desegregating Private Higher Education in the South: Duke, Emory, Rice, Tulane, and Vanderbilt” Reviews:
Review by Bob Pando
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“Harvard is the Emory of the North,” said Atlanta boosters in the period following World War II. But it wasn’t true, and Harvard was not the Duke of the North, either. The presidents and faculties of five elite southern schools – Duke, Emory, Tulane, Rice and Vanderbilt – knew their institutions were inferior, by orders of magnitude, to the Ivies, Stanford and the University of Chicago. Morally and pragmatically, segregation stood in the way of advancing their schools. To become a research university and to mount competitive graduate programs required outside funding, principally from large national philanthropic foundations and from the federal government. But such funding sources as the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller organizations began to attach a string to their largesse – abandonment of Jim Crow restrictions on race. And beginning with Truman, each succeeding federal administration increasingly pressured the private schools to end segregation voluntarily or risk losing grants and other major sources of funds.
University trustees manned the barricades, barring transformation of the institutions. Uniformly well-fed, white, and backward-facing, these worthies dedicated their tenure to the maintenance of racism in their beloved schools. Melissa Kean avoids an “inside baseball” study of the five universities. Instead, she offers a well-written, fast-paced account of the faceted conflicts between the academicians and their well-intentioned superiors. University presidents, sometimes aided by a conservative but practical trustee, became whitewater guides, steering through political rocks and hazards. Readers know the outcome of the struggles, and Kean gives us a thoughtful and absorbing account of how it happened.
Review by Jon L. Albee
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This book is exactly what the title says it is, told from the perspective of the wealthy and influential white men who ultimately gave in. While it’s a truly exceptional chronicling of how these universities dealt with their respective trustees during the period, there’s actually rather little about the African-Americans who form the locus of the story. This book is really about how conservative white men gave into the financial pressures and ultimatums of northern philanthropists, court orders, and the threat of further loss of academic prestige than about some great moral transformation that took place at the universities in question. Understanding the thesis, you’ll love this book. If you’re looking for a moral statement about civil rights, this book will disappoint you.
Overall Rating: (out of 2 reviews)
Price: $ 44.41
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