“PROGRESS”: University of Connecticut building racially segregated dorm for black males. Ah, sweet “progress.”
The awkwardly long acronym ScHOLA²RS stands for “Scholistic [sic] House Of Leaders who are African Amercian[sic] Researchers and Scholars.” ScHOLA²RS House will be among seven distinct communities at UConn’s $79 million, 210,000 square-foot NextGen Residence Hall, which is set to open in the fall.
It’s not clear if the words “Scholistic” and “Amercian” are purposefully misspelled for some reason.
In any case, the mission of the segregated dorm is “to groom, nurture, and train the next generation of leaders to address grand challenges in society through the promotion of academic success in undergraduate programs at the University of Connecticut and in competitive graduate programs.”
The concept, supporters of the neo-Jim Crow dorm say, is to increase college graduation rates for black males at UConn.
UConn education professor Erik Hines, the faculty director for the dorm, observed that black males at the school get diplomas at a rate of just 54 percent. The rate for all students on campus is 82.5 percent.
“It is a space for African American men to, one, come together, and validate their experiences that they may have on campus,” Hines told Hartford Fox affiliate WTIC-TV. “Number two, it’s also a space where they can have conversation and also talk with individuals who come from the same background who share the same experience.” . . .
About 40 black males are expected to live in ScHOLA²RS House.
It is not clear what would happen if a male who is not black applied to live in the ScHOLA²RS House community.
Yeah, this sounds logical: We can increase the graduation rate of African-American men by giving them safe spaces where they can “validate their experiences” (translation: confirm their own racial biases) and talk “with individuals who come from the same background who share the same experience” (translation: confirm their own racial biases). This predictably will exacerbate racial tension on UConn’s campus and further alienate these young men, many of whom are present on campus only due to very aggressive affirmative action programs. Racial balkanization is a (progressive) recipe for disaster.
You can separate the races, but it won’t make them equal; indeed, separation is inherently unequal. Didn’t we affirm this as a guiding constitutional (equal protection) principle in Brown v. Board of Education? This should make an interesting lawsuit–one for which the UConn alums, students and Connecticut taxpayers sadly will have to pay.