THAT UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS and administrators are intimidated by the issue of race is obvious. Why? Is not tenure sufficient protection against retribution? Based on recent experience as a result of publishing an article on the subject, let me offer some clues to the fear that racial questions provoke on campus. My encounters are hardly earthshaking, nor, for that matter, have I suffered any real harm. I remain tenured, teach courses, and continue my life. But, to the extent that my experiences are typical, they help explain the deafening silence emanating from higher education on issues of race.
The February 12, 1996, issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD featured my article ” Potemkin Diplomas.” It described how universities “make the numbers” for black graduation rates: special courses, easy transfer credits, steering students away from tough courses, tolerance of cheating, generous grading by ideological sympathizers, and the like. The specific examples I used came from the University of Illinois, where I teach, but the phenomenon is a general one. The article indicted opportunistic, craven administrators who substitute diplomas for education and make minority students willing dupes of academic fraud. I also noted that many whites have long enjoyed similar ” benefits.”
Three days after publication, an angry delegation of four “offended” black students clutching high-lighted copies arrived to confront me with their boiling outrage. Mere words cannot capture this encounter. In the course of this meeting, I was told that: Clarence Thomas was not black; the federal government could instantly cure inner-city school woes merely by spending the money; standardized tests such as the SAT had no validity; academic achievement was just a matter of being rich; and their own education was genuine, given their considerable efforts. What preferential treatment they may have received, moreover, was simply compensation for comparable benefits bestowed on wealthy white suburbanites. Peppered about were the usual obligatory accusations of racism, and in summation they labeled me an angry white male and demanded my firing for gross offensiveness.
A few days later, two reporters from the Daily Illini, the predictably P.C. student newspaper, came to interview me. I said I had no fight to pick with minority students, that I believed they were being exploited for political purposes. Having again forcefully made my case, I honestly thought things would now dissipate. On February 23, the paper ran a front-page story headlined “Professor’s article causes outrage.” Some low-level administrators defended their programs and took pot-shots at me. An undergraduate was quoted as saying some “racist, ignorant bastards” work for the university. The head of my department, the person who decides my salary, mused, “I think that [Weissberg] has a unique perspective on the world. There is not one iota of substantiation behind his allegations.” There was not a hint of balance anywhere in the story. One black student shortly afterwards e-mailed me, advising that I should “pucker lips when you kiss my ass as I walk down the aisle to obtain my sheepskin.” I also noticed that my black students often looked at me oddly during my next few lectures, almost as if I had forgotten to remove my Klan regalia.
Colleagues began talking to me about the article. I never distributed it, and when asked how they saw it, all answered that a copy of it spontaneously appeared in their mailboxes. How it arrived there remains a mystery. Nor did any colleagues, even those conservatively inclined, offer encouragement or confirmation, even privately. Only a single, anonymous phone caller, surely a middle-aged white male and likely university employee, congratulated me on my courage. This caller, I should add, repeatedly stressed his desire “not to get involved” by identifying himself.
About a week later the Daily Illini published an editorial, “Prof’s article hypocritical.” While frankly acknowledging the truth of many of my accusations, the paper nevertheless criticized me for admitting that there is classroom soft-heartedness towards marginal minority students. The final communication (thus far) came from a beneficiary of minority-student programism. His spirited defense of his intensely managed educational experience was that, indeed, it was the genuine article. Twice he mentioned that program enrollees were “the best and the brightest” and not “at risk.”
There are lessons here, lessons obscured in other prominent racial- intimidation tales. First and most surprising, don’t count on support from fellow faculty, students, or any other witnesses, even sympathetic ones. On campus, only the editor of the undergraduate conservative student newspaper, a former student, offered a kind personal word. Save a few academic e-mails from afar, nothing. Only instant ostracism. Second, news about “racial insensitivity,” no matter how remote, travels even faster than juicy malicious gossip. On the very day I received my copy of the issue in which my article appeared, a Marxist colleague was already challenging my analysis.
Finally, no amount of explaining, citing evidence, or argumentation, in public or in private, can placate the offended. The better the explanation, the worse the outcome. I was hopelessly guilty of saying “bad things” about programs “helping” blacks. Regardless of motives or veracity, I was a criminal. Angry confrontational “justice” here is swift and unappealable; publicly defending myself or offering evidence would only draw more outrage. Imagine if I had cited The Bell Curve (though it does document my point)!
Professors do not shop at a marketplace of ideas; on race, we shop at an intellectual convenience store, with high prices, poor selection, and an anxious proprietor following you down the aisles with a baseball bat. Judges, elected offcials, parents, alumni associations, political organizations, and potential employers are the only people who can change the current state of affairs. The best a professor might accomplish is slightly to annoy the powers that be while making life unpleasant for himself. Take my word for it.
EDITOR-NOTE:
Robert Weissberg is professor of English at the University of llinois.
by Robert Weissberg
