1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821541603321

Autore

Johnson Matthew

Titolo

Undermining racial justice : how one university embraced inclusion and inequality / / Matthew Johnson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, NY : , : Cornell University Press, , 2020

©2020

ISBN

9781501748592

1-5017-4860-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Collana

Histories of American Education

Disciplina

378.774/35

Soggetti

African American college students - Civil rights - Michigan - Ann Arbor

Universities and colleges - Michigan - Ann Arbor - Admission

Racism in higher education - Michigan - Ann Arbor

Affirmative action programs in education - Michigan - Ann Arbor

Discrimination in higher education - Michigan - Ann Arbor

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Introduction: Preserving Inequality -- 1. Bones and Sinews -- 2. The Origins of Affirmative Action -- 3. Rise of the Black Campus Movement -- 4. Controlling Inclusion -- 5. Affirmative Action for Whom? -- 6. Sustaining Racial Retrenchment -- 7. The Michigan Mandate -- 8. Gratz v. Bollinger -- Epilogue: The University as Victim -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Over the last sixty years, administrators on US college campuses have responded to black campus activists by making racial inclusion and inequality compatible. This bold argument is at the center of Matthew Johnson's powerful and controversial book. Focusing on the University of Michigan, often a key talking point in national debates over racial justice thanks to the controversial Gratz v. Bollinger decided by the Supreme Court in 2003, Johnson argues that UM leaders incorporated black student dissent selectively into the institution's policies, practices, and values. This strategy was used in order to prevent activism from disrupting the institutional priorities that campus leaders deemed more important than racial justice. Despite knowing that racial



disparities would likely continue, Johnson demonstrates that these administrators improbably saw themselves as champions of racial equity. What Johnson contends in Undermining Racial Justice, isn't that good intentions resulted in unforeseen negative consequences, but that the people who created and maintained racial disparities at premier institutions of higher education across the United States firmly believed they had good intentions in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The case of the University of Michigan fits into a broader pattern at elite institutions of higher education and is a cautionary tale for all in higher education. Inclusion has always been a secondary priority and, as a result, the policies of the late 1970s and 1980s ushered in a new and enduring era of racial retrenchment on campuses across the United States.