“What we have in America today is resegregation; the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education is very much up for grabs.” So began African American Studies professor Pamela Brooks’ introduction to a panel discussion on the legacy of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision.

The discussion mainly examined the current state of educational inequality in the United States. The four panelists were Brooks, her colleague in the African American Studies Department Booker Peek, as well as Dawn Alexander (OC ’82) and Michael Lythcott (OC ’70).

Lythcott, an Oberlin trustee, focused his argument around a simple but provocative statement.

“For some reason, Americans are very uncomfortable with descendents of slaves,” he said.

He sharply criticized the ways that education today deals with race and diversity. “We use a lot of cute little words to talk about desegregation today. We dissect problems so discretely that we don’t realize we’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

He used Cleveland as a glaring example of a school system being resegregated. “In 1990 20 percent of students in Cleveland attended segregated schools, today that number is 79 percent.”

“This is who we are!” he told the audience. “We have to seriously work on this issue and get America over its discomfort with people of color, particularly black people.”
Alexander is a Vice President of Sales and Marketing for SecureNet Solutions as well as a professor at the University of Maryland.

Her presentation differed from Lythcott’s in that it sought to emphasize educational inequalities in terms of class rather than just race.

“The truth is that blacks and whites in poverty have more in common with each other than they do with blacks or whites of means,” she said. “Our education system is class based and whites are at an equal disadvantage.”

She also sought to put America’s problems of inequality in an international context. “Our manufacturing base is being whittled away. We as Americans and particularly as African Americans need to find what it is that we have to offer the world.”

“I remember when I was at Oberlin a lot of people were talking about Pan-Africanism. This idea makes more sense now than ever before.”

Professor Peek gave the last presentation and became quite animated as he discussed students’ responsibility to address the problems of inequality.

“Oberlin students are problem solvers,” he said. “You’ve spend about $40,000 and you’re probably wondering what you’re getting for you money.”

“We’re still talking today about what Oberlin did for blacks in 1834. We have to ask ourselves what we are doing today. That is how we will pay respect to those who came before.”

Peek noted some alarming statistics including the fact that more black men are in American prisons than American colleges but was quick to acknowledge that real change could only come from within the black community.

“We cannot be content with just asking white people to help us,” he said. “I have no doubt that givenw proper motivation our kids and be competitive by anyone’s standards and pass anyone’s tests. If we are unable to do this there is no meaning to the idea of anyone’s liberation.”

The final speaker of the night was supposed to be President Nancy Dye but she stayed at home due to illness. An empty chair on stage marked her absence.

“It’s a sad thing that she can’t be here,” Brooks said. “Especially as these issues directly impact this institution.”

Brooks sharply criticized Oberlin’s admissions policy during the question and answer period, where he claimed, “Oberlin is tacitly shifting its focus towards the upper middle classes.”

Lythcott agreed noting that the emergence of an African-American middle class has allowed colleges to “maintain a level of diversity without dipping below a certain socio-economic layer.”

But despite their bleak outlook on the current situation, the four remained optimistic about the future and conveyed a sense that we are in the midst of a transitional period for the black community in America.

“In the last century we had great fighters like Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X,” Peek said. “We are standing on strong shoulders. We must make sure that the shoulders our children and grandchildren are even stronger.”