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MILLENNIUM SHOWDOWN FOR PUBLIC INTEREST LAW 37
Simply put, resources are efficiently deployed when the institutional environment
retains a favorable community reputation, a faculty committed to nurturing
and developing eager minds, experienced administrators and influential
alumni. 267 The efficacy of the educational opportunity is reflected in the overall
experience available to matriculating students. Intellectual gains should be high
and accompanied by heightened cultural awareness, positive psychological adjustment,
and commitment to excellence. 268 Statistical analysis of student experience
at HBCUs identify these factors as the objective differences which
distinguish these institutions as quality educational programs. HBCUs have
been singularly successful in providing quality education to African-Americans.
Those committed to providing access to quality education for non-whites have
only to accept and adopt the wisdom and supportive character reflected in
HBCUs to avoid less favorable outcomes.
C. Relocating the Predator
It is important to isolate the oppressor from those oppressed. Limit the power
or discretion that the oppressor has over determining the learning environment.
To the extent that there is a belief that Blacks are inadequate or less knowledgeable
than whites about black institutions and people, the learning environment is
hostile and likely to perpetuate the subservience of all non-dominant group personnel
and students. Someone who does not share these specifics of a culture
remains an outsider, no matter how astute a student or how innocent their intentions.
269 Non-dominant group members are likely to engage those outside of
their group in a marginal way. The "wolf" believes that the student is inadequate.
The relationship between the wolf and the student is open to subservience or
permitting the student to be viewed and treated as a freeloader, unwelcome and
less qualified,27o
In graduate and professional schools, the absence of minority faculty is credible
informal indicia of questionable institutional commitment to equal opportunity
for minorities in higher education. 271 This conclusion is based on or easily
adopted in light of research that identifies the presence of minority faculty as the
"most persistent, statistically significant predictor of enrollment and graduation
of African American graduate and professional students. ,,272 Failure to recruit,
employ, and promote to tenure a critical mass of minority faculty is closely associated
with the inability or unwillingness to expend the energy and resources
267 Frank Adams Jr., Why Brown v. Board of Education and Affirmative Action Can Save Historically
Black Colleges and Universities, 47 ALA. L. REV. 481, 496 (1996).
268 Id.
269 Ware, supra note 36, at 681.
270 Atkinson, supra note 217, at 144.
271 Epps, supra note 260, at 759.
272 Id.