Hidden Messages in the Pursuit of Equality

Abstract

long been a sympathetic analyst of the pressures and problems that beset minority faculty in higher education, I recently participated in yet another conference on building an egalitarian academic community. At the core of this and many similar national meetings has rested the conviction that major reforms and attitudinal changes can be achieved through a combination of legislation and enlightened social behavior. For half a century or more, higher education, with all its contradictions, has been viewed as the great social equalizer. In Democracy and Education, John Dewey wrote that through education each individual gets an opportunity to escape from the limitations of the social group in which he was born, and to come living contact with a broader environment. Higher education has been viewed as that place where social consciousness and equal opportunity are built into the cultural fabric; where great minds engage in democratic social relationships unaffected by ethnic and economic differences; where intellect, talent, and creativity elevate humankind beyond the social malaise of the world; where strong precedents exist for the advancement of progressive ideology and liberal thought; where scholars fulfill their capacity for knowledge, discovery, wonder, and truth. While this rhetoric remains a dominant theme to-