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"Historically Black" Leaves Room for Diversity

By Shaka Lias
Black College Wire

Historically black colleges are not all black.

Dr. Wilma Roscoe, interim president and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, has written that 17 to 18 percent of the students in black colleges are white and another 13 percent are foreign.

BaoHan Vo is one of them, a Vietnamese biology major who said she decided to come to Clark Atlanta University for its science and research programs.

Though some of Vo's friends were surprised that she wanted to attend an HBCU, Vo said she wanted to discover more about other cultures and about diversity in America.

Rachel Ames, who is Filipino-Chinese, is another, an accounting major at Clark Atlanta from San Francisco.

Ames said she came to the university because she wanted to attend a private institution, and has been pleased by its Southern hospitality.

Unfortunately, that hospitality has not been extended to everyone. Marquita Gonzalez, a black Puerto Rican, said she came to Clark Atlanta to be in a different setting. But she found some students who were not so welcoming.

"When I first arrived, a guy approached me and said, 'Why are you going to a black school? You aren't black.'"

According to the university's Office of Planning Assessment and Research, 4,915 graduate and undergraduate students were enrolled at Clark Atlanta as of last semester. Of those, 543 were nonblack.

Josh Dill, a white freshman at Morehouse College, said that he enrolled mainly to gain a sense of brotherhood that he felt he missed as an only child. But not all encounters have been brotherly.

"My worst experience here was when I was approached by [someone] who said, 'I hate when white boys come to Morehouse.'" Dill said he was disappointed by the ignorance of the comment, but that Morehouse was his first choice and said he treated every day as a new experience.

Elizabeth Broadway, managing editor of The Famuan, Florida A&M University's student paper, said, "Nonblacks who attend HBCUs should not expect to be nurtured, protected, praised or uplifted." Broadway went on to say that she did not consider that to be discrimination, just cultural pride.

"I think that it's an educational experience for them because they will be knowledgeable of the black culture," said Olicia Strong, a Clark Atlanta film major.

Ron Smith, a 57-year-old white graduate student at Clark Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center, said he considered it a great honor to attend the center.

Smith said his life had been threatened by a black student, but that 98 percent of the students were in favor of his attending the school.

All students interviewed for this article said they would have no problem if their children decided to attend an HBCU.

Perhaps BaoHan Vo summed it up for everyone when she responded to those who ask why she chose an HBCU. "I'm just here to get my education," she said.

Shaka Lias is a student at Clark Atlanta University who writes for The CAU Panther.

Posted March 22, 2004