Martin Luther King Day Address, January, 2003
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. It is
ironic that on the very day that would have been Dr. King’s seventy-fourth
birthday, the President of the United States—departing from his policy
of not commenting on cases under review by the Supreme Court—issued
a statement condemning the University of Michigan Affirmative Action plan
as racist.
To be fair, this is the same president who made cultural and racial diversity
a criterion for the composition his own leadership team.
In making these remarks, President Bush was—wittingly or not—lending
his voice to a chorus of neo-conservatives who promote the phrase, “the
new segregation.” In my opinion this is an insidious concept. At best,
it attempts to justify the curtailment of such programs as Affirmative Action,
which are designed to correct a systemic failure within the American society.
At worse, the phrase implies that the old segregation is no more, that Martin
Luther King’s “dream” has become a reality, that discrimination
has been eradicated and that no further effort in this regard is required.
We know that is just not true. There is still a very large gap that separates
the white community from the non-white in such areas as level of income and
infant mortality. A comparison of our mostly black inner city schools with
our largely white suburban schools reveals a significant gap in the quality
of education. Tragically, the black male prison population is greater than
the black male college population in this country. People of color continue
to pay a “skin tax”—to use Jessie Jackson’s term--in
every segment of our economy from groceries to mortgages.
Clearly, we have a job to do.
When we turn our attention to our own University we find that there has
been some progress but there is still much to be accomplished. As I did during
my first speech at this annual celebration, I will use this forum to report
on our yearly progress toward achieving the goals for diversity as articulated
in our Governing Ideas.
The good news is that our faculty searches for the current year resulted
in one-fifth of those positions being filled by people of color. The total
number of applications for these positions by people of color also increased
this past year.
The bad news is that currently minorities hold less than 10% of tenure track
positions on our campus.
We have a job to do.
When we look at our student population, our future seems brighter than our
past. Our admissions office took a “snapshot” of applications
for next year on January 10. We have a 52% increase in minority applications
over last year at this time. When we look at the number of these applicants
who have been accepted for admission to date, there is an increase of 28%
over last year at this time. The fact remains, however, that these numbers
are still disproportionately small, and that African Americans, Native Americans,
people of Asian and Hispanic descent represent less that 5% of our total
student population.
We have a job to do.
Through our Diversity Council we have awarded over $48,000 to support students,
faculty and staff in some fifty projects to raise awareness and to support
the unique needs of ethnic groups in our region.
Our curriculum is beginning to reflect the growing diversity of our academic
community.
The Multicultural Center continues to stand as a model organization that
seeks to reconcile the call for both diversity and inclusivity as defined
in our Governing Ideas. The MEC is a place where all are welcome, and all
differences are celebrated.
As we celebrate the legacy of this great American, let us imitate his capacity to temper hatred of injustice with hope for the future, to see not only what is but also what can be. Let us neither engage in excessive self-congratulation, which leads to complacency and complicity, nor lament too much our slow progress, which leads to recriminations and despair. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us what we have to do; now, let’s do it.
Richard H. Wells, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh