Boyce Watkins (Syracuse University, Whitman School of Management) has a provocative post on BlackProf: Why Universities are Fundamentally Racist:

I recently spoke at my undergraduate alma mater, The University of Kentucky. …  The energy in the auditorium was off the chain, as the house was totally packed. I actually never realized how much an educated black man can scare some people, as I had been labeled a “Dangerous Negro” by local media. The students came ready for war, and I was ready to guide them down the war path. I didn’t want them filled with hate. I just wanted them to have understanding, purpose and direction.

I started with the undeniable facts. I asked the students how many of them have had more than one black professor. Two hands went in the air, with both students being African-American studies majors. The fact that there were hundreds of people in the room, yet only a couple of them have had more than one black professor (after taking several years of classes, half the room was filled with college graduates) made my point immediately and clearly. There was honestly not much else to say.

Is it not the right of students of color to have faculty (especially tenured faculty, not just soon-to-be-fired adjuncts and assistants) who look like them? Is it the presumed destiny of these students to feel that they are not worthy of the same rights as white students, who are more likely to have mentors, associates and individuals with a common cultural background and disposition? I never had a black professor in my class until I became one, and I took far more classes in my life than I care to admit. When I did meet one black professor (the only black professor in a business school faculty of 90), he became my mentor, changed my career path and became one of my best friends. To this day, he is, to my knowledge, the only black professor tenured in the 140 year history of the entire University of Kentucky School of Business. That’s a damn shame. The bigger shame is that this is actually the norm.

I will be blunt and make the politically suicidal statement that many faculty across America might be afraid to make: the hiring and tenure of black faculty is simply not a priority for most predominantly white universities. We are invited in droves to dribble basketballs, but not asked to contribute intellectually to the same campuses that earn collective billions from black youth whose mother’s can’t even pay the rent. We are asked to sweep the floor and win football games, but are declined the opportunity to make critical decisions or drive campus policy. Rather than giving results when it comes to the hiring and promotion of black faculty, we are given the same old excuses. Universities have taken little personal responsibility as it pertains to dealing with the residual impact of their clearly racist historical foundations. Their predecessors didn’t want us there, and by having such allegiance to the traditions of racists, many universities are merely continuing the dirty work their academic forefathers began.