Good Intentions: Collegiate Desegregation and Transdemographic Enrollments

One often sees [that] good intentions, if pushed beyond moderation, bring about very vicious results. --Montaigne, Essays, Book II, chap. 19

Collegiate desegregation remains one of higher education's most important challenges. The quest to facilitate equity and equality in postsecondary educational access, opportunity, and attainment is a critical effort in advancing America's democratic ideal (Brown, 1999b). Yet despite collegiate desegregation's significance, higher education researchers and policy makers lack clarity or consensus about it even as state coordinating boards and institutional boards of trustees implement collegiate desegregation compliance initiatives. Current desegregation initiatives center on changing the racial demographics of the student and staff populations (Brown, 1999a). The result is a collection of ad hoc policies and practices which promote shifts in the statistical composition of the student population within the corresponding institutions based solely on race--transdemography. Transdemography poses a unique set of opportunities and challenges for public historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Transdemography offers HBCUs an opportunity to both enrich the student campus context and encourage intercultural communication within the academic environment. However, transdemography simultaneously has the capability of eradicating the rich campus culture for which HBCUs have been lauded (Brown, forthcoming; Fleming, 1984; Garibaldi, 1984; Hytche, 1989; Roebuck & Murty, 1993; Willie & Edmonds, 1978). This article explores the conundrum of transdemographic enrollments at the public HBCU. The article also investigates the possibilities and problems associated with the growing number of White students at HBCUs, following a history of African American student participation in higher education and the legal context of collegiate desegregation. Using sociological research findings on tipping-point theory, I present a case study of institutional and cultural change. The findings provide important policy guidance on the state and place of HBCUs in higher education in an era of shifting student enrollments.

The Historical Context of the Public HBCU

Public historically Black colleges and universities have a unique historical context. Educational opportunities were limited for African Americans prior to the Civil War. The problem of access was further complicated by the system of slavery operating in the South and the unquestioned racism of the North. While some free African Americans attended White colleges in northern states, systematic postsecondary educational opportunities for African Americans were virtually nonexistent (Brown, 1999a). In an effort to fill the void, northern missionaries, abolitionists, and educators began to establish colleges devoted to the education of African Americans. The first such college to be officially chartered was Cheyney State University in Pennsylvania, founded in 1837. The aftermath of the Civil War brought a proliferation of institutions targeted toward the newly freed African American population. More than two hundred HBCUs were founded or chartered by 1890 (Brown & Davis, 2001).

In 1890, the second Morrill Act passed Congress. The first Morrill Act (1862) provided federal support for state-level public higher education. The Morrill Act of 1890 mandated that those funds include colleges and universities that enrolled African American students. Because of the practice of segregation in the South, many states elected to establish separate public HBCUs for the sole purpose of having a legal beneficiary for the new federal support (Weinberg, 1977). These public HBCUs eventually came to be called "1890 institutions." This pattern led to a dual system of higher education in 19 southern and border states (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia) which cemented the status and place of public HBCUs on the nation's higher education landscape.

This stratagem of providing postsecondary education persisted until African American students filed a series of cases seeking admission to historically White institutions (Brown, 1999a). Berea College v. Kentucky (1908), Pearson v. Murray (1936), Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma (1948), Sweatt v. Painter (1950), and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (1950) each involved...