Other People's Colleges: Separate and Unequal Higher Education in the Age of Reform

• In Event: Race and Higher Education

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how elite reformers consciously attempted to deny opportunities to marginalized student populations in the first half of the 20th century. Relying on extensive archival analysis, the author shows that while the reformers held bigoted views, those beliefs were transcended by a larger set of convictions about the need to create a higher education “system” that maximized social efficiency and eliminated waste in the form of irrational aspirations on the part of both students and institutions.

Author

• Ethan W Ris, University of Nevada - Reno