Colorblind University: Racial Inequity and Higher Education in the 20th Century

Brandon Render, University of Texas

Monday, January 31, 2022 at 7:00p.m.

This lecture traces the intellectual genealogy of racist colorblindness through admissions policies, departmental structures and curriculum design in the United States. Black student activism and university policies during the midcentury civil rights struggle forged a colorblind intellectual movement that fundamentally reshaped interpretations of race. This argument draws upon student organization records, university policy, state and federal legislation, and legal records. Taken together, these documents prove that colorblind logic emerged out of a feedback loop of social interaction, legal interpretations, cultural production and access to political power - on campus and beyond the ivory tower. 

 

Free and Open to All
The event is sponsored by the Marquette University Department of History and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion. For more information contact the History Department at 414.288.7217.