Letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

Matt DeBellis' article about declining African American enrollment, while pointing to a disturbing trend, raises more questions than providing fact-based answers.

Clearly any college campus should both reflect and embrace the cultural values of its constituent students as well as society as a whole. But blaming a so-called "upper-class, northern European curriculum" for declining African American enrollment is without foundation. After all, why would other minority groups not experience a similar decline if this was true?

Maybe we should heed Kenneth Montiero's advice, and every time a given minority's enrollment falls we should revise our curriculum to be 'more inclusive' of that particular group's norms and values. From this cultural-relativistic perspective, any view of history and culture is valid - it just depends on whose perspective it is. Unfortunately, history classes (unlike psychology classes) can only be taught from a limited number of perspectives. Beyond that, it is up to the students to form their OWN conclusions and generate their OWN ideas. And, yes, it's OK for those ideas to be different from those taught to them.

Mr. DeBellis's argument is most sound in its focus on financial issues. If African Americans are suffering disproportionately because of rising tuition, then something must be done to give them equal opportunity. But let's not blame the curriculum and "institutional racism" for a trend that the students themselves attribute primarily to money.

[ Golden Gater Online February 29, 1996 ]

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