Higher education and the Treyvon Martin case: Campuses conspicuously quiet on racial issues

From a column by Dr. William Harvey, dean of the A&T School of Education, in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education:

“Would the civic atmosphere be less polarized at this point if our institutions of higher learning had presented themselves as appropriate forums for the national dialogue on race that President Clinton called for 16 years ago? Even now, when we examine the curricular offerings and supplemental co-curricular activities that are presented to our best and brightest young people, penetrating analyses of race, prejudice and discrimination are usually conspicuously absent.

“Trayvon Martin’s killing and George Zimmerman’s acquittal aren’t unusual. Quite the contrary. This tragedy mirrors hundreds, if not thousands, of similar incidents throughout the course of American history. Violence, including homicide, is a tool that White Americans have used since people of African descent first came to this country as a means of keeping us ‘in our place.’ This phenomenon, and the reasons behind it, remains largely unexamined in our colleges and universities.”

Click here for the entire column. It originally appeared on http://otherwords.org/