An education of discrimination

In recent weeks, the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar has catapulted the issue of racial segregation into American headlines. On Jan. 18, the mother from Ohio was sentenced to 10 days of imprisonment (out of a possible five years) for lying about her children’s address in order to enroll them in an affluent and predominately white district’s school. She was convicted of “robbing” the better-performing school where her children had been mistakenly placed.

The reality is that Williams-Bolar did not rob anyone. Rather, she is one of the many mothers of color whose children have been cheated by the persistence of educational apartheid in the United States, a system that Columbia uses to its advantage.

According to a UCLA study, American schools are now more segregated by class and race than they were in 1954, when the Brown v. Board of Education decision was made. A Harvard study found that, while only 4 percent of white students attend schools where the poverty rate exceeds 80 percent, 43 percent of Latinos and African Americans do. In a country where school funding is determined by district property taxes, this means that the average student of color receives an education of considerably lesser quality than the one afforded to their white counterparts. The National Assessment of Education Progress has confirmed that this system produces better test results amongst white students countrywide.

This is as true for New York City as it is for the nation as a whole. In 2002, segregation rates for black and Hispanic students in New York were at 75 percent. Accordingly, in 2010, 40 percent of black students met the state’s math standards, compared with 75 percent of whites. Harlem is no stranger to this issue. In fact, last Wednesday, New York elected to close 10 public schools for lack of funding. Of these 10 schools, four are in Manhattan. All four are located in Harlem.

Columbia routinely refers to the sorry state of education in Harlem in order to showcase its “philanthropy.” The Manhattanville Project’s website boasts that Columbia provides “tutoring and mentoring throughout Upper Manhattan.” Not only does Columbia contribute funding and labor to local educational projects, the site brags, but it has also provided eyeglasses to 3,200 students since 1994. Yet, despite its untold benevolence, Columbia is met with opprobrium in Harlem. How can one explain this ingratitude?

The fact that the Manhattanville expansion will, by Columbia’s own estimates, displace 5,000 people, begins to explain this resentment. The Manhattanville expansion is the latest edition in a series of projects undertaken by the school that have deliberately altered the cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic landscape of its surroundings. This tradition began with the college’s colonial founding in 1754. The barrel of displacement, once aimed at the indigenous people of this land, has since been redirected toward the black community. For instance, in 1947, Columbia undertook an effort to remove “undesirables,” predominately black and Puerto Rican, from the area between 110th and 120th streets. Between 1960 and 1968, it directly displaced 7,600 residents of Morningside Heights. In 1980, it evicted residents of 10 buildings between 121st and 122nd streets.

But what can we make of the educational component of this particular project’s PR campaign, given the “separate and unequal” reality in which local schools operate? In effect, Columbia is taking advantage of educational apartheid in order to sugarcoat its expansion. If Harlem had quality schools despite its low property tax level, it wouldn’t need the services that Columbia provides and subsequently uses to justify the displacement of local residents. These educational initiatives do not work against educational apartheid; they work with it. It is a classic colonial strategy to strike with one hand and give with the other. Student volunteer work appropriated by the administration is a part of this overall operation, despite its alliance with the gentler hand.

This effort to cloak expansion with “charity” adds insult to injury. In 2007, University President Lee Bollinger spoke on the Manhattanville expansion at a local community board meeting. Though he was heckled throughout his speech, the roar of the crowd climaxed when Bollinger listed the “benefits” that the expansion would bring to Harlem. Despite the verbal attacks, there he stood, grinning relentlessly, a white man informing people of color that the takeover of their territory is in their best interest.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it is because Bollinger is not the first white male to undertake a civilizing mission in the name of education. It has been an integral part of the white man’s burden since European colonial ventures began. For instance, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, once proclaimed, “If the British dominion in India were exterminated…I think that its noblest monument…would be the policy that it has adopted in respect of education.” The problem is that, in both Harlem and India, this “monument” is erected on the shaky ground of settlement and displacement. If the “monument” had any worth to begin with, it is irrelevant—it is bound to sink into the quicksand beneath it.

Yasmeen Ar-Rayani is a Columbia College junior majoring in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. Color in Colonial College runs alternate Mondays.