U of I Doesn't Care About Black People

By Sean Corbett in News on Nov 21, 2006 7:30PM

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was a part of a recent study on the racial and social equity of the top 50 public universities in the U.S. The good news: U of I is one of the top public universities in the US. The bad news: it got an overall grade of F; the school does not fairly represent the population it serves. U of I joins the ranks of Penn State, the University of Mississippi and 5 other schools who received F’s. The important conclusion of this study is that “students in the entering and graduating classes at these schools look less and less like the state populations those universities were created to serve.” According to the study, in 2003 public universities gave $257 million in grants to students whose families earned more than $100,000 per year. Grants to families earning 100k+? That’s craziness.

When Chicagoist was going to school at U of I, it was apparent the university was trying to "help" racial minorities succeed, albeit helping in an awkward and slightly condescending kind of way. Newly arrived freshman were taken on a special tour of the campus for minorities. Visiting the school-funded cultural houses was a part of the tour, walking down the hall of photos of the university's past chancellors and important people was not (its peachy/whitish hue might be offensive to non-whites.) Other provisions included a fun trip to the library to make sure everyone knew how to use a library. We can see where this strangeness may have originated, it’s got to be hard for people in charge of minority relations at U of I to take their jobs seriously when the school’s mascot is an Indian ... er, Native American.

Chicagoist isn’t one to point fingers, so in all fairness the school does amazing things with the funding it’s given. Helping to stamp out social and racial inequality just so happens to not be one of the most amazing.

Thanks to buba69 for the image!