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The Black student protest movement at Rutgers: a case of compromise and qualified success
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Dexheimer, Lynda. The Black student protest movement at Rutgers: a case of compromise and qualified success. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-we6r-fz58

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TitleThe Black student protest movement at Rutgers: a case of compromise and qualified success
NameDexheimer, Lynda (author); Justice, Benjamin (chair); Lugg, Catherine (internal member); McCormick, Richard L (outside member); Whitney, III, James (outside member); Rutgers University; Graduate School of Education
Date Created2021
Other Date2021-05 (degree)
SubjectBlack student protest movement, Student movements -- New Jersey, Education, Culture and Society, Rutgers University
Extent1 online resource (vii, 192 pages)
DescriptionSince the 1970s, there have been gains in access to higher education for people who have faced historical discrimination based on race, but disparities in admission persist at the most selective universities and colleges. College graduation rates mirror the same patterns of inequality that college access rates once exhibited. White and Asian students, high-income students, and students whose parents attended college graduate at rates far higher than those of their peers. Yet approaches to creating opportunity for those previously disenfranchised have been couched in terms of economic need and underpinned by the liberal principle of colorblindness. This is problematic because it negates the explicit racial justice demands of participants in the social movements who agitated for a transformation of colleges and universities into equitable and inclusive institutions. This paper takes a historical approach and examines the relationship between the creation of the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) and the Black Student Protest Movement at Rutgers University in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Informed by Critical Race Theory, the focus is on the narratives of the individual people who collectively made up the Black Student Protest Movement at Rutgers. Analysis of archival data and oral history transcripts shows that EOF was a race-neutral compromise that fell short of the ideals of protesters. It also shows the social movement to have been strategic, rational, and explicit in its pursuit of racial justice. The demands of the Black Student Protestors at Rutgers for changes to admission policy, curriculum, campus culture, and community relations were met sympathetically by the administration of President Mason Welch Gross, but because of internal and external pressure from stakeholders who rejected the narrative of racism as the key factor limiting opportunity, the initial agreements Gross reached with activists were stripped of reference to racial reparations in order to appease opponents of change.
NoteEd.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-we6r-fz58
LanguageEnglish
CollectionGraduate School of Education Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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