Race Matters Before Admissions: Racial Exclusion at Chapel Hill
Program
#RaceClass
Episode
8 (The A-Side)
Episode Length
28:38
Media Type
Podcast
Release Date
8-15-2022
Publisher
WNHN
Language
en-US
Abstract
This month on #RaceClass, we’re asking: How does race matter before admissions? To start answer this question, we’re examining UNC-Chapel Hill’s history of racial exclusion.
UNC is defending its right to consider applicant race before the Supreme Court. To understand why affirmative action remains a legal necessity and moral imperative at UNC, we explore UNC’s legacy of racial exclusion. UNC is our nation’s oldest "public" university. But from its founding in 1789 through 1955, UNC formally excluded Black students from its undergraduate campus. This policy reflected openly white supremacist attitudes at the highest echelons of UNC’s leadership, For the next twenty five years, UNC actively resisted federal pressure and court orders to desegregate. Part of that dispute ended in 1981, when the Reagan administration brokered a backroom deal with UNC’s institutional leadership—a negotiation that excluded the NAACP and other stakeholders that had fought for integration at UNC. So from 1789 through 1981, UNC either formally barred Black students or resisted integration. Recent events, including the mistreatment of Nikole Hannah-Jones, the defunding of civil rights centers, and a backroom deal with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, suggest UNC has yet to overcome this legacy of racial exclusion.
Recommended Citation
Arnie Arnesen & Jonathan Feingold,
Race Matters Before Admissions: Racial Exclusion at Chapel Hill
(2022).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/raceclass/59
