Reading the most recent ‘Dear Colleague’ letter from the Department of Education’s Office of ‘Civil Rights’ I couldn’t help but think back on three distinct memories from my past that help me to make some meaning of the social project the current occupants of 400 Maryland Ave SW seem to be throwing themselves into with abandon. So let me take you on a short journey down memory lane.

Market Wednesdays

I remember the first Market Wednesday at The Florida State University I had the privilege of attending. I had never encountered a strolling event, and these would occur during ‘Sound Hours’ at the market. I remember seeing the pride and energy that emanated from the faces and spirits of the Divine Nine fraternity and sorority members who stepped forward into the square. Who danced within view of the memorial to Maxwell Courtney, Fred Flowers, and Doby Flowers–one generation or less removed from the students who had the courage and gumption to force integration at the institution as the idealistic 1960s came to a close. Within view to their north stands French Town, a historically black neighborhood that faces many of the challenges found in all predominately black neighborhoods in Jim Crow cities, and whose residents still fight (15 years after my time in Tallahassee) to maintain their dignity and ancestral memory in the face of gentrification and historical erasure.

Here before me was the embodied rebuke of college-educated White society’s efforts to keep black men and women "in their place." The students performed with a giddiness and defiance as if to incarnationally reveal how all those spoken and unspoken assertions, and social rituals designed to crush them had failed. These students faced plenty of hate (implicitly and explicitly) for their presence at the institution but on Market Wednesdays it seemed like those retrograde intrusions on their college experience was akin to a bad case of the flu–signs of a fever that was soon to break for good. The resounding clap of their boots acting as a hammer driving a nail into a coffin holding prejudices that should have been buried generations before.

Welcome to Florida

I remember my wife and I’s first entry into Florida at the start of my graduate program. We had just been married on the 4th of July–3 days prior and had packed all our most precious belongings into the back of a Jetta station-wagon (with manual transmission…another story for another day) and made the long drive from Chicagoland to the Big Bend. It was a trip only mid-20-something’s would tolerate. The air conditioning was slowly failing and we had to keep our seats mashed to the dashboard so that we could fit all our boxes and bins in the back.

We decided to stop just across the Florida-Georgia line for a free glass of orange juice. We were eager to get ourselves settled in Tallahassee. We folded ourselves back into our Jetta and as we attempted to merge back onto I-10 we were aggressively cut-off by a disintegrating Dodge mini-van with a confederate flag plastered prominently across the back window.

Lego Spaceships

When I was around 7 years old I enjoyed putting together legos. I wasn’t a hardcore enthusiast but enjoyed the satisfaction of getting a set of instructions and working (usually with my Dad) to put together the spaceships that would serve as valuable toys for inclusion in my games of make-believe (this was before we had iPads folks…). I wasn’t really good at it, and I didn’t have the patience of some of my peers so the completion of a large spaceship was an accomplishment I viewed with pride.

My serious dalliance with putting together lego sets came to an abrupt end on the day I completed a complex spaceship and then witnessed my little sister smash it to pieces. One moment I was gazing upon my completed rocket with satisfaction and the next my younger sister (barely 4 or 5), with a wry grin on her face, ran into the room with a hammer (or was it a shoe?)–I have no idea where she got it–and with three or four good whacks demolished the many hours of work.

At that point all the legos went into a large collective bin–I made no effort to sort out my lego sets and complete the meticulous task of putting together a themed display again.

’They Hate Us Cause they Ain’t Us’

Despite what a couple hours of AM radio (or ‘heterodox’ podcasts), Fox News, or a venture capitalist on X might tell you, Higher Education in the U.S. remains loathe to admit its proximity and complicity in the U.S.’s foundational original sin. Lori D Patton, a scholar who studies the history and present challenges of Higher ed writes:

The convergence of race, property, and oppression is intricately linked to the formation of U.S. higher education. Although early institutions faced significant financial struggle, their leaders quickly connected slave traditions to institutional viability. Institutions used slavery for capitalistic gain as they strengthened the establishment of their physical campuses. Moreover, institutions, most led by clergy and businessmen, used their connections to secure land from Native peoples through theft and violence. Leaders engaged in their own version of manifest destiny by allowing donors to believe they would be evangelizing and civilizing Indians. The end result was education extended to White men, several who would later become leaders of these same institutions and follow similar practices of deception, violence, and monetary gain in the name of White superiority. (Patton, 2016, pg. 320).

Have we moved beyond these legacies? I generally find that when the stories of actual students of color are told to my white peers–who can’t be bothered to listen with an empathetic ear–are generally dismissed as having a ‘victim mindset’–spoiled kids who should be grateful for the opportunity they’ve been given. I think Maxwell Courtney, Fred Flowers, and Doby Flowers would like a word.

In reflecting after the 2nd inauguration of a Donald Trump administration, Brendan Cantwell, a professor who does the sort of work I want to do when I grow up and studies higher education organizations and the policies that influence their behavior, states:

The administration wants to subordinate colleges to its will. It wants to impose upon us the cultural preferences of the far right. This includes the denigration of independent science and scholarship; the supplanting of expertise with partisan priorities; and the imposition of “segregationist” politics, as the columnist Jamelle Bouie put it, aimed at dismantling all remaining tools for integration.

Maybe to a less progressively aligned reader the imposition of “segregationist” sounds a bit extreme. A respectable means of hurling “you racist” at an interlocutor without using the actual words. However when faced with a Dear Colleague letter that calls into question the value of equity programs like scholarships for minority students, multicultural centers, special graduation ceremonies, legitimate forms of social science research, and admissions strategies meant to account for social inequality, how else should such a move be interpreted?

With the massive coercive power of cutting off access to Federal money, this Department of Ed walks into the storefronts of colleges and universities and says "nice little shop you got here, would be a shame if something happened to it." These moves only make sense if one genuinely believes that the wrongs of our past have already been properly dealt with. That the darkness which laid the foundation for our prosperity and global dominance has already been adequately repaired. That we have atoned for the worst thing we've ever done.

What I see is a toddler running towards a lego rocket ship with a hammer (or big shoe), the aggressive swerve of a minivan whose driver believes in the lost cause. I see a policy project that would respond to what I witnessed at Market Wednesdays and instead of feeling inspired and seeing cause for hope, feels an intense jealousy and sees a threat.