Colleges hired a greater share of Black and other nonwhite leaders in the months after Black Lives Matter became a household term than they did before.
ONLINE: Eddie R. Cole
February 22, 2021
Princeton University Press
Eddie R. Cole is associate professor of higher education and organizational change at the University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA associate professor Eddie R. Cole studies the history of higher education, and recently his research has delved into how college presidents have attempted to shape attitudes on race, both in academia and off campus. His findings are detailed in
The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton University Press, 2020). Cole will talk about the book and his research, including UW-Madison history, during a livestream discussion with Public History Project Director Kacie Lucchini Butcher. The Friends of UW Madison Libraries event is free and open to all; find it on YouTube.
Join us for a conversation with UCLA professor Eddie R. Cole as he discusses his newest book
The Campus Color Line with Princeton s Vice Provost for Institutional Equity & Diversity Michele Minter.
The Campus Color Line illuminates the important role of college presidents, including Princeton’s Robert F. Goheen, in the unfinished struggle for racial equity in education and beyond.
Focusing on the period between 1948 and 1968, Eddie Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, initiated and shaped racial policies and practices inside and outside of the educational sphere. With courage and hope, as well as malice and cruelty, college presidents positioned themselves sometimes precariously amid conflicting interests and demands. Black college presidents challenged racist policies as their students demonstrated in the streets against segregation, while presidents of major universities lobbied for urban renewal programs