Fifty years ago, every student and faculty member in the United States, including those of Syracuse University, watched as the Supreme Court made a ruling that began to erase the ugly stain of segregation on our education system.

Brown v. Board of Education ended segregation in public schools and upheld the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, said Latonya Miller, public affairs director at the Brown v. Board of Education national historic site in Kansas.

‘(Brown v. Board of Education) laid the foundation for what was to come, after which were the beginnings of the modern day civil rights movement,’ Miller said.

Although SU never had to deal with issues of segregation, its history is not completely free of problems.

‘This school has been men and women of all races since it was founded in 1870,’ said Mary O’Brien, the office supervisor in records management. ‘It isn’t just since the civil rights movement that we have had black students.’

O’Brien said SU graduated one of the first black female doctors in the early 1870s. More recognizable black figures like Jim Brown, ’57, and Ernie Davis, ’62, also attended SU before and during the civil rights movement, and were extremely successful, popularizing the number ’44,’ in their athletic jersey numbers.

The founders of SU simply wanted to provide a place where people could receive a quality education, no matter their gender or race.

‘The Methodist ministers that founded this place in 1870 were a very ecumenical bunch, which is why women as well as men came in,’ O’Brien said. ‘They founded this place because they wanted to have a good school centrally located where all their sons and daughters could come and anybody else who wanted to come and take advantage of a good education.’

Although some schools, like SU, never segregated its students, the Brown v. Board of Education still affected them, Miller said.

‘Even though that school may not have been directly affected, it could have easily been affected,’ Miller said. ‘Brown v. Board was a reactive and proactive measure.’

SU has had its own problems, though, as far as race relations are concerned, and it has not always been restricted to racism against blacks.

Since 1970 until the present, there have been many prejudice issues that have occurred against blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians and homosexuals.

In 1999, an Asian student was beaten by a group of white people at a local Denny’s Restaurant. Jewish students, too, felt discriminated against when the Student Association constitution was drafted in 1973. Although members of the student Afro-American society and Puerto Rican organization were given voting representation, Jews and other minorities were not.

Most recently, several students have painted their faces and bodies in a dark color, in a series of alleged ‘blackface’ incidents, which mimic minstrel shows from the early 1900s.

‘I see that as people not being educated,’ said Michael Camp, a senior biochemistry major and the historian for the African American Male Congress. ‘A lot of people see blackface and they just don’t know what it means. I feel like it’s Syracuse’s duty as a university to educate the people about what it means.’

While Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, presented in his 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, has not yet been fulfilled, and SU continues to address some problems, the dream and progress continue.

‘I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ King said in his speech.

SU has tried to keep prejudices off campus at times, as the school banned military recruiters from setting up recruitment tables in the College of Law in 1982. The recruiters would not sign the anti-discrimination statement which disallowed them to discriminate against physical handicaps and sexual orientation.

SU preaches the fact that it is a diverse campus.

‘When I came into school in 2000, I got intimidated because I didn’t see the diversity,’ Camp said. ‘Now I’m a senior, I see they are making choices to try and diversify the university. I think they are pushing forward.’

Although the university promotes its diversity, the recent discrimination incidents on campus have made some students believe that there is still room for improvement.

‘There is always work to be done because there are always issues coming up, such as blackface,’ Camp said.

Camp also said although there is an initial response to racial incidents, they quickly die down and are soon forgotten.

‘People made it seem big when it happened,’ Camp said. ‘But there were no consequences, nothing came out of it. It just happened again, it will keep going and keep happening. Nothing is being taken care of.’

Camp was also excited about Chancellor-elect Nancy Cantor’s coming to SU.

‘I believe that she can help bring some more ways of helping diversity since she is coming from Illinois, which is a very diverse institution,’ Camp said. ‘The programs that she has been in have helped her become well-rounded to become the chancellor of Syracuse University.’

As black history month comes to an end, and SU continues to strive for equal treatment and more diversity, King’s dream remains:

‘And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children – black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants – will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Published on February 25, 2004 at 12:00 pm