Looking to the past: King's legacy

Diversity still lacking on CU campus

The words of a man who advocated racial equality and social justice echo all the louder at a university trying to shake a label of homogeneity.

Jan. 15 marks the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and as CU and the rest of the nation celebrates the life and works of the civil rights activist, David Hays, an archivist with the Norlin Library, looks to the past as a measure of the success of King’s legacy today.

“Records of minority enrollment were not kept at the university before the 1970s, but through research of my own, I’ve found that in 1939 there were roughly 11 black students out of 4211 students, which is about .0025 percent,” Hays said.

By 1978, he said, a decade after King’s death, there were 411 black students, encompassing part of a 17,736 student body, which is 2.2 percent of the enrolled population. Hays added that the black student population at CU through the 1970s and 1980s hovered around 2 percent, a percentage that took a tumble during the late 1990s.

“CU has done a lot to try and attract more minority students by offering interesting programs like our minority studies programs, but people vote with their feet, and if black students, or Hispanic students don’t feel welcome or at home here, they won’t come here,” he said.

According to the Office of Planning Budget and Analysis, through the late 1990s, the percentage of black students enrolled at the university fell consistently from a decade-high 1.9 percent to one of the lowest points in CU history, 1.4 percent in 2006. In contrast, Hispanic enrollment has enjoyed a steady climb over the last decade, up from 5.3 percent in 1996 to 6.1 percent in 2006. Asian American students, having maintained 5.2 percent of the student body over the last 10 years, jumped to 5.9 percent in 2004, which climbed to 6.1 percent in 2006.

“Beyond race, this university is suffering from a lack of class diversity. When I was going to college, $8,000 paid for everything, today, on this campus, that amount barely pays for a semester. With such high costs, it isn’t just the minority students that are being driven away, it’s low to middle income students of all races and ethnicities that are choosing more affordable options like Front Range (Community College),” Hays said.

While the university has a history of taking a proactive and progressive approach to racial issues, Hays said, it is because of the weighty tuition increases of the last few years experienced by CU students that this work would be in vain.

According to Norlin archival records, during the time of Dr. King students at CU formed the Ethnic Minorities Commission, and in tandem with the Faculty Senate Committee on Ethnic Minorities, successfully ended the segregation of barbershops in Boulder. By 1966, the Greek system on campus was completely desegregated. The university began offering minority scholarships in the late 1960s, and the Black Studies and Chicano Studies were established in 1970 and 1972.

Many of the programs and committees begun in the 1960s and 1970s have either been eliminated, such as the student-run Ethnic Minorities Commission, or exist in a truncated version, such as the Black and Chicano studies programs.

Today, CU is once again attempting to take a proactive approach in addressing racial and ethnic diversity. This year, Chancellor Bud Peterson and the Blue-Ribbon Commission are exploring the possibility of appointing a new vice chancellor position for diversity, equity and outreach, a move that has garnered support among minority students on campus.

“I’m confident the effort he’s making will be positive. We’re all going to have to work really hard,” said Jasper Peters in the Denver Post, a senior philosophy student and member of the Black Student Alliance.

In the face of a recent rash of racially motivated incidences around campus and slashed budgets, the university faces an uphill battle in ensuring King’s legacy at CU, but in the man’s own words, “lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”