Longread:Tulane's Complex History of Discrimination: Is the Past Still Present?

Disclaimer: The Views and opinions in this article are contributors and my own, not the views of Tulane University, the University of Sussex or any department within these institutions. All information is freely available and in the public domain.

It has been sixty eight years since the historic Brown vs The Board of Education Supreme Court case in which it ruled in favour of desegregating schools, so you would expect a massive wave of change in the last six decades but is that the case at one of America’s and the South's most prestigious colleges? The Answer is not as clear as you would imagine. To find the answer we first need to look back at Tulane's complex history as this still holds a firm grip on the school today. 

Tulane was founded in 1834 as the Medical College of Louisiana and was a public University designed to supplement the educational needs of an ever expanding New Orleans, however it gets its current name and private status from the philanthropist Paul Tulane who donated more than a million dollars in today’s money to the University in 1884. According to Tulane's own history page they state that he made his money in New Orleans, what it does not state is how he got that money, while he was a wholesale goods and clothes trader he directly profited from slavery, his father used slave labour in Haiti to amass substantial wealth and thus leave Paul to benefit from secure finances. To make matters darker, the reason why Tulane became a private University was because a major condition of Paul’s donation was that the school could only admit white students. The segregation of Tulane lasted all the way up until 1962! With its first African American students enrolling in 1963. Ten whole years after the Brown vs Board of Education ruling. 

From the get-go Tulane has had diversity issues. It has been over sixty years since the first Black students were admitted to Tulane, so you would therefore expect a nice diverse student population, afterall New Orleans, the city where Tulane is located has an estimated Black population of 59% and a white population of 31%. You would therefore expect such a diverse population to spill over into Tulane. However, you guessed it, it hasn't. Black students make up a mere 5% of the school’s population, minorities make up 30% of the student population leaving a massive 70% of students being white. This lack of diversity at Tulane is a clear problem and there is work to be done.

To find out what the lack of diversity at Tulane is like for a Black person living and teaching in New Orleans I spoke to Professor Corey J Miles and asked him about his experience being a young Black Professor in a whitewashed school. 

My first question was a simple one: how it feels working in such a white and undiversified environment, there is of course no simple way to answer such a broad question and Corey started off by saying that 

“One answer is part of it feels kind of normal… I think sometimes I become blind to the whiteness of the University and the unequal systems''

 If an institution has become such a bubble from the city and community it's located in then it's not a good sign if its own Black Faculty sometimes question themselves and think that they play a part in unjust systems.

“I'm so part of it, sometimes I just don't even see it”.

If Black staff at Tulane are thinking they are part of the Universities problem, then it is clear more needs to be done to break down the barriers and to help ensure a thriving diverse school environment. 

Just like Tulane's student population its faculty population is just as unrepresentative of New Orleans with white people making up 71.9% of school faculty. So in a field crowded by white professors and staff as well as students how does a young Black Professor navigate such a formidable environment, Corey dresses not like a typical University Professor is “meant” to, he wears Jordans as well as more casual clothing but this isn't to say it makes him any less of a Professor than an old white man wearing a suit to class and this dress sense has had some impact on his experience at work. 

While his aesthetic might not be academic as such, he believes that the University 

“Probably likes that Black aesthetic coolness. But then I don't think they necessarily like the larger implications that will come from dressing that way”.

 While the school may like the way he dresses, he believes that the things that come from the way he dresses as a young Black man and the idea of being cool and fashionable is not what Tulane believes or uses by way of “funding or when it comes to how we organise our admissions”. 

This is an example of how a university can be perceived to look like they are inclusive and welcoming to all but in reality, when it comes to actual difference, their efforts lack real substance. In fact, outside the classroom and around campus people including other staff sometimes don't see Corey as one of their own. 

“I don't think faculty realise I’m another faculty member, I think they just see me as just another black person. And so, I think like the youth and the way I dress kind of takes away my faculty privilege in certain spaces”. 

Tulane's own staff feeling sometimes as if they are not staff is just another cog in the wheel in the way that Tulane has failed to be diverse in all areas.

Despite Tulane having few Black students and faculty it does have a major black population of service workers, these jobs tend to be the lowest paid with little benefits or security. This in effect has created a segregated school to an extent, not in the way Tulane was pre 1963 but rather an economical and racial segregation, as Corey explains 

“There's a whole bunch of Black people on campus right, they do the service work, we actually see a whole bunch of people of colour on campus and my analysis of segregation in 2023 doesn't work through just denying people access into the building”. 

Corey talks about how faculty and administrators are overrepresented by white people and service workers and groundskeepers are overrepresented by Black people, 

“We’re unevenly distributed through space…my assumption will be that even if we brought more diverse people here, they will still be segregated within how they exist unless something structural changes”. 

The idea that simply bringing more diverse people onto campus will not change anything unless something structural changes is a thought-provoking idea and is one I have certainly thought about since I arrived. I and I assume the majority of Tulane students think that they are inclusive and try to be inclusionary. As someone who has lived and studied in some of the most diverse places in England it certainly came as a shock when I noticed just how white and even more noticeably how well off people were here and I think that certainly more needs to be done to have a more diverse school population.

Finally, the biggest question of them all, what does a current Professor at Tulane think can be done to make it a more diverse and accepting place? Of course, the US education system as a whole needs to be revolutionised, no one should be paying tens of thousands of dollars to access University education especially without student loans like in England and Corey agrees and believes that

 “As long as education is just as economically inaccessible to most people across the world, the shifts we make on individual campuses don't address the larger things”. 

Reforming the education system isn't as simple as simply just accepting more students from diverse populations, the real way change can occur is through the underlying issues such as economic and social factors such as by revamping admissions especially when looking at the socioeconomic background of applicants.

A more leftfield argument and valid point comes from Professor Miles who believes that the University may have to lose things such as donations in order to prove and show that diversity matters to them, He asks a big question which is 

“What are we willing to lose, whether that's financially, whether it's politically and are we willing to sacrifice and I don't think the answer today is yes” 

So what is the answer of the university? According to Miles the answer is 

“We care about diversity so long as it allows us to keep prestige and allows us to seem progressive. And those should not be the driving forces.”

Of course Tulane has come a long way in certain regards with its inclusion but there is clear work to be done. Tulane does little to acknowledge its past and to this day there is still a hall named after famous segregationist politician F Edward Hebert despite campaigns from staff and students. The name Tulane itself feels wrong when you look at him and his family, maybe if Tulane was serious about being diverse and acknowledging the past it should look to change its name entirely or at least be more open and accepting of the past. There also needs to be a better way that the University can make itself a more welcoming environment for students and faculty. There have been roads of progress since 1963 but there is still a long way to go to ensure an equal campus.

Corey J. Miles is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Africana Studies Program. His debut book Vibe- The Sound and Feeling of Black Life in the American South is out December 15. https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/V/Vibe