The College Fix

Is a racially diverse faculty is a necessary requirement for a good college education?

The Brown Daily Herald apparently believes so, with its story “Faculty Whiteness Complicates the Classroom.”

In it, article authors Emma Harris and Joseph Zappa lament the fact that white faculty outnumber “underrepresented minority” faculty at Brown by a factor of ten.

That definition of “underrepresented minority” does not include Asians (is this really a surprise?), and then, when comparing the campus enrollment of white students to that of minorities, the definition of the term becomes based on those who “self-identify” as such.

This dearth of “faculty of color” makes for some … uncomfortable experiences:

Students of color sometimes encounter difficulties in the classroom resulting from the differences between their experiences and those of white faculty members.

While Armani Madison ’16, president of Brown’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has not experienced outward racial bias from faculty members, he said, “race is dealt with quickly” in the classroom. When racial issues in the United States are brought up, they are frequently skirted by professors and summarized in the framework of the American people moving forward, he said.

White faculty members sometimes espouse views in class that should be questioned, said Emma, a junior whose name has been changed to maintain confidentiality.

“I would love to see more initiatives aimed at making faculty aware of microaggressions and biases and how those could affect students in class,” she said.

But being of color is not necessary for a faculty member to handle discussions on race deftly in the classroom, Emma added. “I have professors who are not of color who have to talk about race and other sensitive issues who handle it very well.”

Still, the dynamics in a predominantly white classroom may pose challenges for students of color.

Often Madison is the only student of color in the room, he said. When subjects relating to race arise, he said, he is “looked to as the authority” on the subject by his peers.

The pressure to perform in a predominantly white class taught by a white faculty member is particularly intense for students of color who may not have had high school preparation as strong as that of their peers, said Dolores Maldonado ’16, who came to Brown intending to concentrate in physics.

“If it’s a white professor, they expect me to be at the same level (as students with stronger high school preparation), so I need to prove that I don’t fit into stereotypes,” Maldonado said. “I need to speak very intellectually or formally to portray an image that they would want.”

Seeing “deplorably low” numbers of faculty members of color in senior administrative positions makes him feel out of place at a predominantly white institution, Madison said. He will “never be comfortable” at Brown, he added, due to the overwhelming lack of diversity.

A couple of thoughts/questions:

• Why did Madison choose Brown, or, at the very least remain there with the knowledge of the “deplorably low” number of minority faculty? Not to mention, why does he subject himself to “never being comfortable?”
• Why is it unreasonable for a (white) professor to expect the same academic results from Ms. Maldonado as his/her white students? She’s enrolled at Brown, after all.
• Madison gets irked when (white students) look to him “as an authority” on race matters? He is, after all, the president of Brown’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and this entire article is about how people of color feel “out of place” due to their “different experiences.” The media, after all, routinely seek out college professors of color and (minority) civil rights leaders for “their community’s” perspective on various issues. So, why would it seem out of line for Madison’s peers to ask him?

This Brown Herald article is the second in a series titled “Pervasive Prejudice.”

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