Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

122 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
Notes
1 While grants prior to this period also sought to support research projects and
disseminate the best new scholarship, the amounts of individual grants
were much smaller.
2 The March 6, 1995, issue of the New Republic received a great deal of media
attention when it published Leon Wieseltier’s critique of Cornel West as
its cover story. In bold white letters against a Black background, the cover
headline read “The Decline of the Black Intellectual.” Although Wieseltier’s
article focused on Professor West, the bold headline conflated the most
well-known contemporary Black intellectual with the status of Black
intellectuals broadly. In addition, controversial comments made by
Leonard Jeffries, former chair of African American Studies at City College
of New York, also led conservative critics to unfairly label all forms of
Afrocentricity anti-Semitic.