Some Things, Better Left Unsaid?

• In Event: When What We Know Is Not Enough: Questioning Silences in Educational History

Abstract

Clarke and Fine (2010), have written about institutional responses to slavery and the “discourse of remonstrance” at two universities where apologies for the slave-past were offered effectively (at Brown University) and ineffectively, (at the University of Alabama). Clarke and Fine explained that institutions must take time to examine the past and give a meaningful apology. This requires an extended process of active consideration, an openness to a process of apology, and thirdly, a likening of “an ideal-type image of a university and an ideal-type image of a museum—a glass box that attempts to be dispassionate, permitting contemplation with the hope of draining an issues of emotion while maintaining its relevance.” This, they call “anesthetizing” the past. In these efforts, Clarke and Fine agreed that historians help in “keeping people” and institutions “honest” and that in its ideal form, “the university is positioned to act as a ‘crucible of debate and a center for non-polarized analysis.’”

Indelibly marked by the historic integration by James Meredith in 1962, the University of Mississippi has advanced considerably since Meredith’s entry (Eagles, 2009; Doyle, 2001), even enrolling African Americans as 16% of its total student enrollment in fall 2010 (UMIRA, 2011). Yet despite some good efforts, the University of Mississippi has not shaken-off the polarized conceptions of its history and culture. For example, the University has not apologized for slavery or fully addressed its “Lost Cause” Confederacy past, where Civil War battle re-enactments, a longstanding “Dixie Week” and other “Dixie” traditions long marked student culture (Cohodas, 1999; Newman, 2005) and Confederate images appeared in the university’s alumni publications. The University has been engaged in a protracted but “silent” battle to distance itself from its unofficial mascot, Colonel Rebel over the past two years with some gains made by student government who led a process to adopt a new mascot, a Rebel Black Bear who has been welcomed by some and vilified by others. Now, advocates of Colonel Rebel are seeking a remedy through an amendment to the State of Mississippi Constitution, requiring official status for Colonel Rebel at the University and for his image to be included on all University letterhead and paraphernalia (Litten, 2011). How should a university respond to such a proposition? Might silence be golden?

This paper, “Some Things, Better Left Unsaid” will use archival sources to explore the use of silence as a strategic tool by the University of Mississippi to make progress within in a politically-charged, historical context characterized by divergent viewpoints of southern history espoused differently by a variety of constituents including executive administration, faculty, staff, students and alumni. Ostensibly cut off from Clarke and Fine’s ideal for establishing itself as a “crucible of debate and a center for non-polarized analysis,” this paper explores how the University makes sense of its past and moves forward within a larger, southern historical and political context using silence to stave off competing conceptions for stewardship of its own past.

Author

• Amy E. Wells Dolan, The University of Mississippi