Poison in the Ivy: Race Relations and the Reproduction of Inequality on Elite College Campuses by W. Carson Byrd (review)

Poison in the Ivy: Race Relations and the Reproduction of Inequality on College Campuses reflects the growing disillusionment with higher education's efforts to sufficiently address inequality and negative racial attitudes. Byrd offers a sociological perspective on how elite colleges in the United States sustain and reinforce racial inequity through campus social redlining. Student's limited interactions with diverse peers distort their understanding of racial disparities on campus and beyond. Building on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction of power in institutions, Byrd examines how elite higher education institutions create and reinforce individualistic conceptualizations of racial inequality.

Byrd's study helps readers make sense of why notions like meritocracy and individualism persist despite demonstrable structural racial inequities in the United States and globally. Elite college campuses represent perfect settings for study since they are often simultaneously sites of progressive change and entrenched racial inequality. Byrd masterfully demonstrates that despite exposure to research and knowledge disputing racial stereotypes, student's [End Page E-2] socioeconomic status, racial identities, and peer interactions can lead them to rationalize—and accept—racial disparities. Using elite college environments as proxy, this book explores racism and the future prospects of racial equality in the United States.

Poison in the Ivy focuses on elite college campuses given their students' disproportional access to opportunity, status, and privilege. Elite colleges are major contributors to the pipeline for influential public and private leadership positions. Byrd's prior research on racial essentialism, race and intelligence, and racial socialization in highly selective colleges sets the context. He goes on to analyze how toxic, segregated campus environments inhibit students' efforts to make sense of racial inequity in their own lives, on campus, and in the wider community. He identifies how college students develop social networks, how social interactions inform racial attitudes, and whether racial identities influence these outcomes.

Byrd addresses five key issues: (1) how often students interact across racial and ethnic lines, (2) whether patterns vary across social situations, like friendships, roommates, or student organizations, (3) the relationship between student interactions and racial beliefs, (4) how racial identity influences attitudes and interactions, and (5) how "eliteness" and "whiteness" jointly shape student ideologies and interactions. To explore these questions, Byrd analyzes quantitative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF), a 1999-2003 study of 3,251 students from 28 of the nation's most highly selective colleges and universities.

The book's intuitive structure eases reader access by introducing typical views of race, difference, and inequality on college campuses. Byrd's longitudinal framing of the college-going process illustrates the evolution of racial attitudes and beliefs. He details the process of racial socialization and intra- and inter- group interactions before, during, and after college. Chapter Two, "Life Before College: Factors Influencing Early Views of Race and Inequality," begins with the understanding that college students receive messages around race and difference early on in their educational journeys. Before college, from primary through secondary school, students develop and are bound by rigid conceptualizations of race and inequality. By the time they enter college, students have deep-seated beliefs about race as well as how and—with whom—they should interact. Byrd finds that students disregard structural explanations of racial and class inequalities and instead attribute the lower social and economic status of racial minorities to individual causes. Whether these ideologies change during college is explored in the next two chapters.

Chapter Three, "Mixing it Up on Campus: Patterns of and Influences on Student Interactions," introduces the crux of the argument by analyzing interactional patterns during college. When students enter college, they find a space characterized by racial hierarchy and segregation that normalizes certain patterns of social interactions. Ironically, for many students, college is their first exposure to racial, ethnic diversity. Byrd finds that pre-college friendships across racial lines...