It's A Matter of Color

As Commencement approaches, I've had time to do the obligatory retrospective of my time at Harvard. And I've found that for almost three years, I have been unable to articulate my feelings about something that really bothered me about this school--until now. My studies have taken me into a variety of government and core curriculum courses, but until this year, none of the lectures I attended were led by a professor of color. I found this trend a little troubling.

Admittedly, part of my uneasiness may have stemmed from wanting to see someone who looked like me. Having just left home for what would be the longest period of time away from my family, I felt a need to know people with whom I identified. Race is only one level on which I could identify with others, but it is one that cannot be ignored.

And while I appreciated that I was not the only Black male in the 1600 member Class of 1996 (I was one of 24), I wondered why Harvard's faculty did not feature a commensurate staffing of minority professors. In an academic environment where diversity is prized in the student body, I pondered, why didn't that same commitment to diversity apply where faculty was involved? From the perspective of the entering Black first-year, there would have been at least some intangible benefit from seeing someone else who is Black in an academic position of authority.

If differences like gender, religion, and region could be represented within the ranks of the college faculty, why couldn't qualified minorities add to the faculty's diversity? I find more than a little irony in the fact that I had more minority teachers in my Montgomery, Alabama high school than I have during my entire time at Harvard. My time here has proven that the Deep South is not the only part of America where racial inclusion is a challenge.

In the years that followed, I recognized a more practical problem with having few professors of color: Many times, research issues relating to minorities are overlooked by a faculty devoid of minorities. After deciding to study the issue of minority voting rights, I confronted the fact that few professors in the Government Department dealt primarily with this important research area. The current debate surrounding the issue of voting rights hits at the heart of democratic notions of fair representation and inclusion, yet Harvard's largest department has a relative lack of emphasis on that area.

Finding a senior thesis advisor for my topic was not a simple endeavor. Some of the professors I consulted had written about voter participation or the empirical process of redistricting, but precious few were engaged in current research about minority politics or representation. At the time I was seeking a thesis advisor, Thomson Professor of Government Martin L. Kilson, the lone Black tenured professor in the department, was the only scholar listed as a specialist in minority politics.

Although my professors and my thesis advisor (a scholar in residence) have all been supportive, I do wonder about how things might have been different with more specialists in this important field. Scores of qualified professors of all colors nationwide have done extensive research on minority and urban politics. Undergraduates should not be obliged to flock to the one person of color who serves as the resident expert on issues in which minorities are involved. I believe that such a situation strongly resembles tokenism.

The lack of both substantive inclusion (that is, a greater emphasis on racial politics) and descriptive inclusion (having more professors of color) apparently has quantifiable disadvantages as well. The most recent U.S. News and World Report guide to the best graduate schools ranked Harvard's department number one in every sub-field of political science--except for American government. The University of Michigan, the department that surpassed Harvard's, has more than ten minority faculty as well as a strong emphasis on minority voting rights.

A few weeks ago, some classmates and I took a trip to the United States Supreme Court. The trip was much more than a field trip or a vacation; we had the opportunity to witness oral arguments for two landmark voting rights cases, Hayes v. Louisiana and Johnson v. Miller. Both involved the question of whether Southern states could create congressional districts with a majority of Black voters to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The Court's decision may dramatically change the substantial gains by Blacks in practically all of the Deep South states.

More than one commentator has compared has compared the potential import of these cases to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the presence of many courtroom observers reflected that prominence. Congressmen, political scientists, legal experts, and advocacy representatives packed the room. In the midst of all these dignitaries sat six of us and our professor, Federal Judge Emeritus A. Leon Higginbotham.

In his first year on the Harvard faculty, Professor Higginbotham taught a seminar on the role of race in the American legal process. As the centerpiece of the curriculum, we discussed the merits and implications of each of these pending cases. As an amicus curiae on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, Judge Higginbotham provided invaluable insight about not only the politics behind racial redistricting but also about the important policy implications that the Supreme Court would inevitably address.

Perhaps the salient question is not whether Harvard can afford to hire more minority faculty members, but whether we can afford not to. Judge Higginbotham is not the only Black faculty member who offers such unique opportunities and insights to our diverse community; Professor Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, his wife, is another example. A host of other extremely qualified individuals around the country in a variety of fields offer similar opportunities for Harvard students. It is in Harvard's best interest to recruit them.

I should note that I am not contending that because Higginbotham is Black, he took time out of his schedule to invite us to the Supreme Court. That assertion, I believe, is an insult to his personal character. Few professors of any color could have even gotten their students into the Court, regardless of their willingness to do so. Nor should it be concluded that Judge Higginbotham extended the invitation to us because we were Black. Indeed, Higginbotham made his offer to the entire class.

What I would submit is that the University, given the high premium that it places on diversity, should seriously consider the practical benefits of having more minority men and women on its faculty. Judge Higginbotham exemplifies just those unique opportunities and experiences that could be available to Harvard students.

To think that I have spent two of my three years at Harvard without seeing a face of color at the head of the room is unsettling. And experiencing some of the practical benefits that minority professors can provide makes the situation only more absurd. I applaud Harvard for its efforts to recruit these highly qualified faculty members, yet I stop short of saying that the University has done enough in this area. It's a nice start, but a little progress should be followed by more strides to transform both this student body and the faculty into true symbols of diversity.

The author, a government concentrator and resident of Kirkland House, will be studying political science and law next year at Stanford University.