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Introduction. “This Right to Grow”: Higher Education as Both a Human and Civil Right
- University Press of Florida
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Introduction “This Right to Grow” Higher Education as Both a Human and Civil Right This RIGHT TO GROW is sacred and inviolable, based on the solidarity and undeniable value of humanity itself and linked with the universal value and inalienable rights of all individuals. Anna Julia Cooper, Howard University, 1925 Anna Julia Cooper was born enslaved in approximately 1858. Despite racist and sexist barriers of the caste system in the United States, she earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Oberlin College, attended graduate school at Columbia University, and then, in 1925, earned a doctoral degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris. Rather than simply bask in her own scholarly success, Cooper worked to improve higher education. She had experienced the inner workings of prestigious college and university systems— collectively known as academe or the “Ivory Tower”—and she attempted to increase access for women and African Americans into that exclusive network. With her critical approach to higher education, Cooper exposed the hypocrisy in American assertions of democracy, disproved claims of a social meritocracy, and discredited European notions of intellectual superiority . She knew that her academic attainment was achieved in spite of, not because of, existing academic institutions, and she effectively voiced her dissent against those who obstructed universal academic access. Cooper argued that all human beings have a right to grow. For Cooper, equal access to higher education was an essential part of human growth.1 Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of Bethune-Cookman College, was an adept politico, renowned educator, and prolific writer. Having grown up in the late nineteenth-century South, Bethune, like Cooper, well understood the ramifications of denied access to education. Though an activist committed to many social issues, including suffrage, housing, fair labor, citizenship and peace, Bethune dedicated her life to supporting higher education access for African Americans in general and black women in particular. In contrast to Cooper, Bethune argued that education is a right of all citizens 2 Introduction in a democracy. These two views of education—as a human right and as a civil right—form a complementary schema for understanding the academic participation of black women scholars of the past. These complementary definitions also present implications for increasing educational access in the future. Bethune asserted that a university has three responsibilities: investigation, interpretation, and inspiration. The purpose of my research is to advance Dr. Cooper’s vision of increased educational opportunity by addressing Dr. Bethune’s three mandates. In this volume, I have three goals: to investigate the history of black women in higher education and to create a solid picture from formerly piecemeal images, to interpret the historic relationship between cultural identity and knowledge production, and to demonstrate how black women’s experiences, ideas, and practices can inspire contemporary educators to transform the academy into an effective tool for increased social equity and opportunity.2 My two main arguments are that, first, black women’s educational history complicates ideas of what an academic should do or be; and second, black women’s intellectual history can outline a more democratic approach to higher education. Black women’s perspectives can contribute to a physical democracy in academe, but these perspectives can also help to create an intellectual democracy—where all people have a voice. This history redefines the academy in interesting and relevant ways, at once challenging and then reifying elitist iterations of knowledge production. Black women scholars of the past did not simply challenge mainstream (that is, white and male) academic space. Their participation in the academy prior to 1954 revealed a unique standpoint at the crossroads of race and gender. Their performance as scholars speaks to the relationship between cultural identity and faculty roles in institutions. Further, this history deepens discussions of academic roles in society. By raising questions of how human and civil rights are intertwined with educational access, scholarly research, pedagogy, and community service, black women academics have significantly contributed to the annals of human thought. This contribution must be taken seriously if higher education is to realize goals of academic excellence and to interact responsibly with other social institutions. Scope Black Women in the Ivory Tower chronicles black women’s struggle for access to increasingly advanced levels of formal education and presents philosophies of influential black women academics. The first part is an educa- [3.138.125.2] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:26 GMT) “This Right to Grow” 3 tional history; the second part an intellectual history. The scope of part...