The Supreme Court's decision further makes the case for HBCUs
Why beg to get into a university that doesn't want you there?
Sometimes Mindy Kaling’s shows are problematic, specifically to Asian men. Oddly, black women like Issa Rae and Lena Waithe do a better job of giving a salute to Asian male heartthrobs (or at least Asian men who aren’t stereotypically goofy). But the one thing I absolutely love most about Season 4 was Fabiola “Fab,” a biracial student, deciding she connected more with Howard University than Princeton University.
The half-Latina, half-Black student ended up visiting both universities, but both her nerd meter and her social meter felt more comfortable visiting the historically black college (and university, or HBCU). The fictional character turned down Princeton University. This doesn’t just happen in TV shows; it happens in real life.
Recommended Read: “4 High School Seniors on Why They’re Attending HBCUs Over Ivy League Schools”
Granted, I didn’t graduate with a 3.8-4.0 GPA — an ideal requirement to attend an Ivy League school. But the high school I graduated from was far from shabby, as part of the International Baccalaureate Organization program. I didn’t have strong opinions about which college I attended other than being as far away from my elementary school and high school peers as possible. (Too many were at my high school, and it started feeling like Elementary School 2.0 in certain classes.) So when I got into a couple of predominantly white institutions (PWIs), I picked the one that pursued me — that one that sent marketing material persistent about diversity, inclusion and varied education. What could it hurt? I’d already attended predominantly black and Hispanic K-12 schools.
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The result: I couldn’t have been more miserable. Universities who claim to want diversity but don’t give a damn about the students once they’re there are the absolute worst of the lot. This is one of the main reasons I shrugged when the Supreme Court made its recent decision to outlaw Affirmative Action in universities such as Harvard University. With a lawsuit backed by Asian students (although white women students benefit the most from Affirmative Action), I rewatched Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act” episode and hoped upset African-American students would give an HBCU a shot. That’s exactly what I did when I left Northern Michigan University before the threat of expulsion for fighting against nonstop racism from the English department.
Recommended Read: “From PWI to HBCU: Why I fled ~ College, and threat of expulsion, made my naivete about racism disappear”