UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hamilton Hall may soon become Pauli Murray Hall

By
July 10, 2020
In Education, Higher Ed, race, What's Race Got To Do With It?

Weeks after UNC-Chapel Hill lifted its moratorium on the re-naming of buildings, Hamilton Hall may soon become Pauli Murray Hall.

This week the chairs of the school’s departments of History, Political Science, Sociology and the Peace, War and Defense Curriculum requested the change though the newly established Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward.

Photo courtesy of UNC-Chapel Hill Department of History

The building now known as Hamilton Hall is named for Joseph Grégoire de Roulhac Hamilton, a professor whose writings on the Civil War and reconstruction were nakedly white supremacist.

A passage from his 1914 book Reconstruction in North Carolina praises the Ku Klux Klan’s role in restoring government to the white race:

“Called into existence by this state of affairs, the Ku Klux lifted the South from its slough of despond by the application of illegal force which overthrew Reconstruction and ultimately restored political power to the white race . . . Heart had been put into the despairing whites and a revolution had been wrought through its operations, or, to be more exact, the results of a revolution had been overthrown and a form of government, wickedly, illegally, and unconstitutionally imposed upon the people, had come into the hands of the class best fitted to administer government, and the supremacy of the white race and of Anglo-Saxon institutions was secure.”

Pauli Murray was a black descendent of one of the original UNC-Chapel Hill trustees, James Strudwick Smith. Denied admission to the school’s Ph.D program in sociology because of her race, she none-the-less went on to become an outspoken attorney, activist and scholar. She was also the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest.

Pauli Murray, courtesy of The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe, Harvard University

“Our motivation for renaming the building is rooted in the history of our University and Professor Hamilton’s role in shaping it for the benefit of white supremacy,” the department heads wrote in a press release Friday. “Ample evidence of this history can be found in the brief submitted to us by our building-wide committee tasked with evaluating this decision.”

“Pauli Murray represents the immutable spirit of scholarship and public service, and she represents the forgone knowledge that UNC could have been a part of, could have supported and nurtured, and could have learned from,” the department heads wrote. “Naming our building after her will serve as a reminder of what was lost, what could have been, and what can be as we move forward.”

E(race)ing Inequities | How race impacts everything from teacher experience, to student discipline, to access to gifted programs

By
August 19, 2019
In Education, News, race, What's Race Got To Do With It?

With a new school year just around the corner, lawmakers, educators and parents should make time to read the thought-provoking new report “E(race)ing Inequities: The State of Racial Equity in North Carolina Public Schools” by the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED).

Policy Watch sat down last week to discuss the findings with James E. Ford, who is the executive director of CREED as well as a State Board of Education member and former NC Teacher of the Year.

In our extended interview, Ford explains why it’s time for another candid talk about race, and why North Carolina must adopt racial equity as a stated goal for our public school system.

If you don’t have time to read the full report. Here are seven takeaways from Ford and co-author Nicholas Triplett that merit further discussion:

 

  • Student groups of color had a higher likelihood of being taught by a novice [teacher] as compared to their White counterparts when controlling for gender, free/reduced lunch status, language status, and special education status.
  • Student groups of color were also far less likely to be in classes with a teacher of the same race/ethnicity.
  • Students of color were strongly over-represented within the districts/LEAs with the highest teacher turnover and vacancy rates.
  • Given the powerful influence that teachers have on virtually all measures of educational success, our results provide evidence that students of color in North Carolina have less access to the highly qualified, experienced, stable, and diverse teachers that are likely to provide them with the best chance of school success.
  • Not only are American Indian, Black, and Multiracial students over-represented generally in the incidence of both in-school and out-of-school suspensions, they appear to be the disproportionate recipients of suspensions involving subjective offenses and receive harsher forms of discipline (OSS vs. ISS) at higher rates. Furthermore, Black students receive longer suspensions on average than any other student group.
  • To give a sense of the magnitude of the racial discipline gap in the state, if Black students had been given out-of-school suspension (OSS) at the state average rate, almost 30,000 fewer Black students would have experienced OSS during the 2016-2017 school year.
  • The under-exposure of student groups of color in gifted and talented programs has the potential to diminish their long-term educational attainment, postsecondary participation, and professional achievements.

Learn more about the history of race and education in North Carolina in CREED‘s  “Deep Rooted” companion report.

Study: College students prefer free tuition to prestigious degrees

By
May 16, 2019
In Higher Ed, News, What's Race Got To Do With It?

A new study released this week gives some interesting insights into college students’ views on the rising cost of tuition and the value of degrees from prestigious universities.

College Pulse conducted the poll of 8,887 students currently attending four-year colleges or universities across the United States.

One of its most interesting findings: 67 percent of college students would prefer “free tuition at a university nobody has heard of” to “full tuition at a prestigious university.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the answers reveal interesting sociological layers when broken down by race and ethnicity.

Black students were most likely (74 percent) to say they would prefer free tuition at an unknown university to full tuition at a prestigious one. White and Latinx students both said they preferred free tuition at about 67 percent. Native American or American Indian students preferred the idea of free tuition at 56 percent and Asian respondents 49 percent.

The study comes as the cost of tuition — and college loan forgiveness — has become a major issue in the Democratic primary for president.

It’s also an issue with which the UNC system and UNC Board of Governors has been struggling the last few  years.

Studies have shown that tuition hikes reduce diversity at universities.

When the N.C. legislature approved dropping tuition at some UNC schools to $500 a semester last year, there were a lot of concerns – lost revenue, the perceived value of a degree, what it would mean for the schools’ reputations to suddenly and explicitly become “value” universities.

Two historically black colleges – including Winston-Salem State and Fayetteville State – opted out.

At the three universities that ultimately became part of the initial NC Promise tuition program –  Elizabeth City State University, University of North Carolina at Pembroke and  Western Carolina University  – there are still concerns among some students, faculty, staff and even administrators.

UNC-Pembroke Chancellor Robert Gary Cumming has praised the program.

 

Report: Students divided on free speech vs. hate speech on college campuses

By
May 13, 2019
In News, What's Race Got To Do With It?

A Knight Foundation report, released Monday, gives some fascinating insight into current college students’ views on the First Amendment, hate speech and which forms of protection should be protected on campuses.

The issue may be particularly of interest in North Carolina, where UNC students are rallying over the final destiny of the Silent Sam Confederate monument, facing off with white supremacist groups who have vandalized campus sites with hate speech and calling for changes in policing policies around protests.

The study polled more than 4,000 full-time, four-year degree seeking students through a confidential mobile app rather than telephone interviews.

A clear majority — 58 percent of respondents — said they do not favor restrictions on free speech, even for hate speech defined as expression that “attacks people based on their race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.” But 41 percent said they do not believe hate speech should be protected under the First Amendment.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the breakdown by gender shows some important differences in sentiment on questions of diversity.

Read more

Bail reform activists charged after protest at Durham detention center

By
May 10, 2019
In News, What's Race Got To Do With It?

Two bail reform activists were charged Friday after chaining themselves to a gate outside the Durham County Detention Center Thursday.

Kayla ONeill Hartsfield, 25, and Serena Elysa Sebring Wadlington, 41, both of Durham, were charged with public disturbance, second-degree trespass and failure to disperse. Both were released on $2,000 unsecured bonds with a court appearance set for June 12.

The group Southerners on New Ground, in which the two are leaders, participated in the national Black Mamas Bailout movement, bailing out incarcerated mothers out of jail for mother’s day. The two women chained themselves to the gates outside the detention center to protest the cash bail system and pretrial detention. This led the Durham County Sheriff’s office to close Pettigrew Street, where protesters gathered, and lock down the facility.

“We call for the city and county of Durham to stop caging Black mothers and caregivers before Mother’s Day and end money bail and pre-trial detention,” the group wrote in a press statement.

The two women unchained themselves around 8 p.m. Thursday. Warrants were issued and they surrendered in the early afternoon Friday.

In a prepared statement, Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead said his department respects free speech but the protest crossed legal lines.

“While we honor this fundamental constitutional right, in this specific incident, laws were broken, leading to charges being filed,” Birkhead said in the statement.

Neither Hartsfield nor Wadlington could be reached directly for comment Friday.

 

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