Professor discusses affirmative action

Graduate and undergraduate students as well as several African-American and African Diaspora Studies professors gathered Monday in the Neal Marshall Education Center’s Bridgewaters Lounge to listen to law professor Kevin Brown give a lecture he has been researching for four years.

His lecture was titled “The Changing Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of Blacks Benefiting from Affirmative Action.”

Brown, who primarily researches race, education and law, focused on what he calls a change dynamic in the ethnic background of black students who are assisted by affirmative action.

Brown argues the “traditional” black student, one whose mother and father are both African-American, is losing out on affirmative action, whereas black immigrants and black multiracial students are gaining the most upward mobility from affirmative action laws.

He said he sees this as a problem.

“The traditional African-American is going to be excluded for most of our selective higher education programs, including our minority scholarship programs,” Brown said.

Sophomore Bryce Robinson was one of many students in attendance at the lecture.

Robinson said he was shocked by the hidden injustices Brown pointed out would affect African-Americans’ educational opportunities.

He said it was strange to hear Brown mention the idea that an African-American would be more inclined to marry a non African-American in order for their children to gain access to an elite higher education institution.

“I think its really saddening, because I know myself I’m very concerned about inner-city issues and the abandonment of the inner city and this population of people who don’t really have any opportunities to succeed,” Robinson said. “So something needs to be done. Don’t know what, but it’s more of a big structural problem.”

Brown is the former director of IU’s Hudson and Holland Scholarship Program.

“This has been my current research topic for the last four years because of its implications for the African-American struggle and for American society,” Brown said.

Professor Valerie Grim  said she, along with many other African-American professors, worked tirelessly fighting for more African-American staff and students at IU.

Grim introduced Brown before his lecture, encouraging students to learn more about this issue and unify themselves.

“I think it’s a conversation worth having, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a conversation worth having as a way of dividing black people,” Grim said. “But it is worth having so that black people can start recognizing the trend and then creating a narrative that allows us to address the trend.”