tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/civil-rights-struggles-15606/articlesCivil rights struggles – The Conversation2019-10-08T19:15:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1205612019-10-08T19:15:07Z2019-10-08T19:15:07ZWorkplace sex discrimination claims are common – but they’re not making it into court<p>Several cases addressing whether it’s legal to fire a worker because of their sexual orientation and gender identity were taken up by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-to-decide-if-anti-discrimination-employment-laws-protect-on-basis-of-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/2019/04/22/175fca02-6503-11e9-a1b6-b29b90efa879_story.html">the Supreme Court this week</a>.</p>
<p>While these legal questions deserve significant attention, those concerned about equality on the job should not lose sight of the broader, yet equally important issue – the continued prevalence of sex discrimination in the workplace as a whole. </p>
<p>And while workplace sexual harassment has taken center stage in the past couple of years, women are still facing these other longstanding problems of discrimination.</p>
<p>Even if workers successfully convince the Supreme Court that sexual orientation should be protected by federal law, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m-jBTzAAAAAJ&hl=en">my work shows</a> that their fellow employees will still be faced with the daunting task of trying to litigate such claims.</p>
<p>In the vast majority of cases, these claims of discrimination don’t even make it to a court.</p>
<h2>Voices not heard</h2>
<p>Only about 6% of civil rights lawsuits in the U.S. find their way to trial, according to <a href="http://www.americanbarfoundation.org/uploads/cms/documents/jels_final.pdf">a recent study</a> that examined about 1,800 lawsuits filed in federal courts between 1988 and 2003. </p>
<p>The study, discussed in a <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/myths_show_the_harsh_realities_of_civil_rights_litigation/P1">2017 article published in the American Bar Journal</a>, included not just cases of sex discrimination, but also those filed alleging discrimination based on race, age and disability. </p>
<p>Of those that actually did go to trial, only about a third of the plaintiffs won their cases, the researchers found. </p>
<p>That’s at least in part because <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/supreme-courts-new-workplace/83109F79F885301B81C127B3B693667A">rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court over the past decade have made it harder</a> to file complaints, and have restricted the ability of multiple plaintiffs to bring claims and share costs through a class action lawsuit.</p>
<p>In the most widely publicized example, in 2011 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/137296721/supreme-court-limits-wal-mart-discrimination-case">the Supreme Court overturned</a> a lower court’s decision against Walmart and prohibited more than a million women from making the case that the company engaged in unfair pay and promotion practices.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf">In the 5-4 decision</a>, the majority said that the women did not have sufficient “commonality” under the law to proceed as a class, arguing that the alleged victims “have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/10-277.ZX.html">Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg</a> criticized that approach in her dissent, writing that “the ‘dissimilarities’ approach” of the majority led it “to train its attention on what distinguishes individual class members, rather than on what unites them.”</p>
<p>While the courts have been slow to recognize and punish sex discrimination, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3269469">my research has shown</a> that illegal workplace bias against women is pervasive. </p>
<p>Here are three areas where it is a problem, though this list is not exhaustive.</p>
<h2>1. Pay inequity</h2>
<p>Women make less money than men, as the U.S. women’s soccer team <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/us-womens-soccer-games-now-generate-more-revenue-than-mens.html">dramatically highlighted</a>. In their lawsuit, they estimate that they are paid <a href="http://money.com/money/5646612/world-cup-2019-womens-soccer-salary-prize-money/">about 38% of what male players earn</a>.</p>
<p>Pay gaps between men and women have existed for a long time. </p>
<p>In 1960, <a href="https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/45/item/8131/toc/270056">surveys conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor</a> showed that women working full-time made 60.8% of the median pay that men did. </p>
<p>A male bank teller, for example, “received US$5.50 to $31 per week more than their female counterparts,” while a male machine tool operator “averaged $2.05 per hour compared with $1.71 for women,” according to <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bc53/859f1312c80dce8a94cd1ceb752859882f01.pdf">a 1974 issue of the Boston College Industrial and Commercial Law Review</a>, which examined the previous decade’s enforcement of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. </p>
<p>Today, women <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html">make 80 cents for every dollar a man is paid</a>, according to the most recent data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/06/news/women-pay-gap-ask/index.html">research</a> by the University of Wisconsin, the Cass Business School and the University of Warwick shows that men are 25% more likely to receive an increase in pay when they ask for it. </p>
<p>By making access to justice much harder for victims of workplace discrimination, the federal courts have created an additional barrier for women seeking equal pay. And my research has outlined the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3269469">ongoing nature of this pay discrimination</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296057/original/file-20191008-128668-19o3nve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today, women make 80 cents for every dollar a man is paid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU3MDU3ODIzNiwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTAxMjcyODI0NyIsImsiOiJwaG90by8xMDEyNzI4MjQ3L2h1Z2UuanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzdG9jay1tZWRpYSJ9LCIyT1VuaFZETXd3QWk1cCtnOHNZUlpIZURsck0iXQ%2Fshutterstock_1012728247.jpg&pi=33421636&m=1012728247&src=6tA7-zS7MTeetkU6C4RD5w-1-8">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Hiring practices</h2>
<p>Even getting a job that is likely to pay them less is harder for women. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0361684314543265">as a study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly showed,</a> men tend to be perceived more favorably by employers — even when men and women who are trained actors respond to interview questions in the same way. </p>
<p>In perhaps <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3269469">the most famous study in this area</a>, performed by researchers Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse, an orchestra used screens to hide the gender of those auditioning for a position. Women were 50% more likely to advance in the process than they had been when evaluators could see their gender. </p>
<p>Other research has shown that women struggle to get jobs that <a href="https://review.chicagobooth.edu/magazine/summer-2014/why-women-find-it-harder-to-get-math-based-jobs">require high levels of math skills</a>. In those experiments, researchers from the University of Chicago, Columbia University and Northwestern University found that “male and female employers were twice as likely to hire a man than a woman when the only factor they observed was physical appearance.”</p>
<p>These stereotypes persist even in academic settings. </p>
<p>A study by Columbia University researchers <a href="http://ndlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/3-Seiner.pdf">concluded that</a> “prospective doctoral student emails with minority- or female-sounding names received fewer responses from faculty than those with male-sounding names.” </p>
<p>Given the subjective nature of the hiring process, these claims are difficult to prove. </p>
<p>In my research, I trace how <a href="http://ndlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/3-Seiner.pdf">this kind of discrimination persists</a>, and how the subjective nature of the hiring process has caused some of these problems.</p>
<h2>3. Career advancement</h2>
<p>Women also struggle to get promoted after they’re hired.</p>
<p>Even when just as qualified as men, <a href="https://review.chicagobooth.edu/strategy/2016/article/women-are-equally-qualified-rarely-hired">women are 28% less likely to be hired for the job of a corporate CEO</a>.</p>
<p>Childbirth may be a factor in the lack of advancement. </p>
<p><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/08/23/news/economy/gender-pay-gap-mothers/index.html">In one study</a> performed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, researchers found that “Twelve years after giving birth for the first time, women are [still] making 33% less per hour than men.”</p>
<p>Pinning down the exact reason for this is difficult. It may be related to the disproportionate amount of time women spend raising a child compared to men, as well as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/upshot/even-in-family-friendly-scandinavia-mothers-are-paid-less.html">unfounded negative perceptions some employers may have of working mothers</a>.</p>
<p>Yet establishing discrimination claims in the context of the glass ceiling is as difficult as doing so in the hiring process, as these effects often occur over the course of a long period of time. </p>
<p>And as employment discrimination claims are now <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/supreme-courts-new-workplace/83109F79F885301B81C127B3B693667A">even more difficult to litigate</a>, finding sufficient evidence to bring these cases is harder.</p>
<h2>One prominent – but not unusual – case</h2>
<p>As the U.S. women’s national soccer team competed in the final World Cup match against the Netherlands this summer, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/sports/soccer/world-cup-final-uswnt.html">the crowd cheered</a>, “Equal pay! Equal pay!” in the stadium. </p>
<p>This overwhelming support for the players was in response to <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/653-us-womens-soccer-complaint/f9367608e2eaf10873f4/optimized/full.pdf#page=1">a lawsuit more than two dozen members of the team filed in March</a>, arguing that they are unfairly paid less than the men’s team. </p>
<p>In challenging the pay practices of the U.S. Soccer Federation, <a href="https://qz.com/work/1654504/us-womens-soccer-team-spotlights-pay-inequality-at-the-world-cup/">the women became the latest example</a> of just how pervasive sex discrimination is in the workplace. These teammates were able to draw attention to their cause. </p>
<p>But many other cases of sex discrimination in the workplace languish or are prevented from getting their day in court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph A. Seiner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Supreme Court has taken up several cases of sex discrimination against LGBT workers who were fired from their jobs. But the majority of other cases of sex discrimination rarely make it to court.Joseph A. Seiner, Oliver Ellsworth Professor of Federal Practice & Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900582018-01-12T21:01:27Z2018-01-12T21:01:27ZWhat activists today can learn from MLK, the ‘conservative militant’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201793/original/file-20180112-101518-1v277rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protestor holds a sign with a quote from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the South Carolina Statehouse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the turbulent days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, activists launched resistance movements: Greenpeace activists climbed a large construction crane near the White House and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/greenpeace-resist-banner-protest-trump.html?_r=0">unfurled a large banner</a> with the single word – “Resist.” </p>
<p>Similar protests took place elsewhere. Thousands of protesters used their bodies to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Protesters-spell-out-resist-on-Ocean-Beach-10927336.php">spell the word “resist”</a> on a San Francisco beach. And at the Grammys, the very next day, rapper <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/q-tip">Q-Tip</a> <a href="http://deadline.com/2017/02/donald-trump-attacked-grammy-awards-a-tribe-called-quest-muslim-ban-1201910151/">yelled “resist”</a> no less than four times from the stage. </p>
<p>A year later, demonstrations like these have not disappeared. A <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-womens-march-2018-story.html">second women’s march</a> is planned for later this month. But the resistance has moved beyond street protests. Activists are now embracing the hard work of political organizing. <a href="https://www.runforsomething.net/book/">“Don’t Just March Run for Something”</a> – the title of a best-seller by Amanda Litman, email director of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, crystallizes this transition. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498511438/Democratic-Humility-Reinhold-Niebuhr-Neuroscience-and-America%E2%80%99s-Political-Crisis">studied the words and actions</a> of Martin Luther King Jr. for decades. The very change we are witnessing now – the transition from protest to politics – is exactly the kind of transition that King called for during the civil rights movement. </p>
<h2>MLK: A ‘conservative militant’</h2>
<p>In the words of historian <a href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2003/in-memoriam-august-a-meier">August Meier,</a> who wrote a seminal book, <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/22712/negro_thought_in_america_1880_1915">“Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915,”</a> published in 1963, King succeeded because he was <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">“a conservative militant.”</a> </p>
<p>The word, “conservative” has a specific meaning here. King was a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/martin-luther-king-socialist/">democratic socialist</a>, he opposed the Vietnam War, and he called for massive investment in the inner cities. He was not conservative in any political sense. But what Meier showed was that King nevertheless manifested a <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">conservative core</a> – one that resonated with millions of Americans and thereby helped achieve the movement’s remarkable success. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">Meier’s words</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“American history shows that for any reform movement to succeed, it must attain respectability. It must attract moderates, even conservatives to its rank.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King understood this. And to that end, he was indeed conservative – both in the arguments he made and the manner in which he presented them.</p>
<p>King argued that racism in America meant the United States was not living up to its own ideals. At the very core of the <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/">Declaration of Independence</a> and thus at the center of American life was the belief that “all men are created equal.” But in America in the 1960s, and especially in the South, African-Americans lived out their lives as <a href="http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/8-civilrights/1946-1953">second-class citizens</a>. In King’s words, American culture was <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2015/01/some_will_have_to_face_physical_death_dr_martin_luther_king_jr_in_syracuse_1961.html">“the very antithesis”</a> of what it claimed to believe. </p>
<p>King did not want to challenge, let alone replace, ideals of freedom and equality. He wanted America to better embody them. He argued that the civil rights movement was just the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/184971711/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-A-Testament-of-Hope-1969">latest in a long American tradition</a> that was both grounded in those ideals and sought to make them more authentic. </p>
<p>King compared the civil rights movement with the abolitionist movement, the populist movement of farmers and laborers in the late 19th century, and even to the American Revolution itself. The American ideal “all men are created equal” constituted what King called a <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm">“promissory note.”</a> In each case, ordinary citizens demanded that that promise be honored. And through their actions, the nation was made more free and more just.</p>
<p>By framing the cause of civil rights in words and ideas that most Americans strongly identified with, King was able to appeal to their innate patriotism. What’s more, those who stood against his cause were, by implication, the ones who could be seen as un-American. </p>
<h2>King’s strategy</h2>
<p>King’s resistance was also strictly nonviolent. Following the model of civil resistance developed by M.K. Gandhi, the leader of Indian independence, King argued for nonviolence <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf">within the terms of his own Christian faith</a>.</p>
<p>King said that by responding to injustice with civility and to violence with nonviolence, the resister was fulfilling <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">“the Christian doctrine of love.”</a> For King, that love was <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf">best reflected</a> in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-fractured-nation-needs-to-remember-kings-message-of-love-68643">Greek word “agape,”</a> an “understanding, redeeming good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.” This was the love that Christ epitomized, and which his followers were called to emulate. </p>
<p>But King also insisted that nonviolent resistance spoke to a respect for the law that can only be called conservative. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” where he was imprisoned in 1963, King insisted that while unjust laws must be broken, they must be <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">broken “lovingly,”</a> such that the act demonstrates a respect, even a reverence, for the law. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">King argued</a> that this nonviolent strategy was not simply the most Christian response. It was also “the most potent instrument the Negro community can use to gain total emancipation in America.” <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/19/alex-haley-s-1965-playboy-interview-with-rev-martin-luther-king-jr.html">He said that</a> violent protests gave the white man “an excuse to look away,” to ignore those who want to claim the mantel of equality.“ </p>
<p>Conducting the struggle <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm">"on the high plane of dignity and discipline,”</a> dressing well, using respectful language and accepting violence without responding in kind – all this gave protesters a moral standing that attracted moderates to the cause. It also sought to change the hearts and minds of the bigots. Even if that effort failed, the bigots were nevertheless defeated. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/14301/slavery-by-another-name-by-douglas-a-blackmon/9780385722704/">Jim Crow system of racial segregation</a> rested on the idea that African-Americans were inferior to whites. By rigidly adhering to the high road, the actions of protesters proved that that entire system was based on a falsehood.</p>
<p>Indeed, if anything, actions on both sides demonstrated the opposite. </p>
<h2>Acting politically</h2>
<p>Many protesters in the 1960s sought to bring down an established order that they saw as irredeemably racist and corrupt. But to <a href="http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Watts">those who said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Burn, baby, burn,” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/01/18/mlk-speaks-philadelphia-middle-school/">King said</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Organize, baby, organize.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fundamental purpose of resistance was to effect political change and that meant operating within existing political institutions.</p>
<p>It also often required compromise. For example, at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, a crisis developed when the newly created and integrated <a href="https://theconversation.com/voter-id-laws-why-black-democrats-fight-for-the-ballot-in-mississippi-still-matters-63583">“Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party”</a> demanded they be recognized and seated instead of the all-white “official” Mississippi delegation. They argued they were the truly democratic representatives of the state as they were the product of procedures fair and open to all. </p>
<p>Party leaders <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_mississippi_freedom_democratic_party/">worked out a compromise</a> that allowed the Mississippi delegation to remain. King accepted this compromise, but many advocates condemned it as an illegitimate accommodation to racism. </p>
<p>King did not disagree, but he argued that this face-saving gesture would help to ensure that the South would not abandon then-candidate Lyndon Johnson. One year later, President Johnson <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_voting_rights_act_1965/">signed the Voting Rights Act</a>, which ensured voting rights for all African-Americans, and brought federal control over elections in the South. </p>
<h2>Resistance through politics is conservative</h2>
<p>The notion of conservative militancy is not one that many of Trump’s opponents would likely affirm. Some see this moment is an opportunity to grow and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/social-media-powered-berniecrats-try-move-party-left/">strengthen the left</a>; others see it as an opportunity to <a href="https://greenpartywashington.org/2016/11/09/resist-trump-failed-two-party-system/">move beyond</a> the two-party system altogether. But the transition from marching to politics show that many understand that opposing Trump requires mobilizing the power necessary to make that happen. </p>
<p>The civil rights movement expressed a similar operating principle: Keep your <a href="https://library.wustl.edu/spec/filmandmedia/collections/hampton/eop/">“eyes on the prize.”</a> Here too, the thought was that opponents should not allow themselves to be satisfied with simply articulating their dissatisfaction. Rather, they should continually orient themselves and their actions such that they advance the movement toward the ultimate goal. </p>
<p>Right now, those Americans who oppose the president contend that longstanding democratic procedures, norms and ideals are under attack. Because they seek to defend those core American ideals, those who resist have become, by default, conservatives and patriots. And now, one year after his inauguration, that defense has moved from protest to politics. </p>
<p>Whether they know it or not, in both regards, these Americans are following King’s example. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-in-resistance-from-mlk-the-conservative-militant-73506">originally published</a> on March 5, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Beem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>King led one of the most successful resistance movements in American history. A scholar explains King’s strategies in resistance.Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/717802017-02-10T04:06:32Z2017-02-10T04:06:32ZAfrican-American GIs of WWII: Fighting for democracy abroad and at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156252/original/image-20170209-28716-6qsolu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two U.S. soldiers on Easter morning, 1945.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NARA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Until the 21st century, the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War II barely registered in America’s collective memory of that war. </p>
<p>The “tan soldiers,” as the Black press affectionately called them, were also for the most part left out of the triumphant narrative of America’s “Greatest Generation.” In order to tell their story of helping defeat Nazi Germany in my 2010 book, “<a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid=33/">Breath of Freedom</a>,” I had to conduct research in more than 40 different archives in the U.S. and Germany.</p>
<p>When a German TV production company, together with Smithsonian TV, turned that book into a <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/breathoffreedom">documentary</a>, the filmmakers searched U.S. media and military archives for two years for footage of Black GIs in the final push into Germany and during the occupation of post-war Germany. </p>
<p>They watched hundreds of hours of film and discovered less than 10 minutes of footage. This despite the fact that among the 16 million U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II, there were about one million African-American soldiers.</p>
<p>They fought in the Pacific, and they were part of the victorious army that liberated Europe from Nazi rule. Black soldiers were also part of the U.S. Army of occupation in Germany after the war. Still serving in strictly segregated units, they were sent to democratize the Germans and expunge all forms of racism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A soldier paints over a swastika.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NARA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was that experience that convinced many of these veterans to continue their struggle for equality when they returned home to the U.S. They were to become the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement – a movement that changed the face of our nation and inspired millions of repressed people across the globe.</p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://history.vassar.edu/bios/mahoehn.html">German history</a> and of the more than 70-year U.S. military presence in Germany, I have marveled at the men and women of that generation. They were willing to fight for democracy abroad, while being denied democratic rights at home in the U.S. Because of their belief in America’s “democratic promise” and their sacrifices on behalf of those ideals, I was born into a free and democratic West Germany, just 10 years after that horrific war. </p>
<h2>Fighting racism at home and abroad</h2>
<p>By deploying troops abroad as warriors for and emissaries of American democracy, the military literally <a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/">exported</a> the African-American freedom struggle. </p>
<p>Beginning in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, African-American activists and the Black press used white America’s condemnation of Nazi racism to expose and indict the abuses of Jim Crow at home. America’s entry into the war and the struggle against Nazi Germany allowed civil rights activists to significantly step up their rhetoric. </p>
<p>Langston Hughes’ 1943 poem, “<a href="http://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans">From Beaumont to Detroit</a>,” addressed to America, eloquently expressed that sentiment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You jim crowed me / Before hitler rose to power- / And you are still jim crowing me- / Right now this very hour.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Believing that fighting for American democracy abroad would finally grant African-Americans full citizenship at home, civil rights activists put pressure on the U.S. government to allow African-American soldiers to “fight like men,” side by side with white troops. </p>
<p>The military brass, disproportionately dominated by white Southern officers, refused. They argued that such a step would undermine military efficiency and negatively impact the morale of white soldiers. In an integrated military, Black officers or NCOs might also end up commanding white troops. Such a challenge to the Jim Crow racial order based on white supremacy was seen as unacceptable. </p>
<p>The manpower of Black soldiers was needed in order to win the war, but the military brass got its way; America’s Jim Crow order was to be upheld. African-Americans were allowed to train as pilots in the segregated Tuskeegee Airmen. The 92nd Buffalo Soldiers and 93rd Blue Helmets all-Black divisions were activated and sent abroad under the command of white officers. </p>
<p>Despite these concessions, 90 percent of Black troops were forced to serve in labor and supply units, rather than the more prestigious combat units. Except for a few short weeks during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 when commanders were desperate for manpower, all U.S. soldiers served in strictly segregated units. Even the blood banks were segregated.</p>
<h2>‘A Breath of Freedom’</h2>
<p>After the defeat of the Nazi regime, an Army manual instructed U.S. occupation soldiers that America was the “living denial of Hitler’s absurd theories of a superior race,” and that it was up to them to teach the Germans “that the whole concept of superiority and intolerance of others is evil.” There was an obvious, deep gulf between this soaring rhetoric of democracy and racial harmony, and the stark reality of the Jim Crow army of occupation. It was also not lost on the Black soldiers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women’s Army Corps in Nuremberg, Germany, 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Post-Nazi Germany was hardly a country free of racism. But for the Black soldiers, it was their first experience of a society without a formal Jim Crow <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/breathoffreedom">color line</a>. Their uniform identified them as victorious warriors and as Americans, rather than “Negroes.” </p>
<p>Serving in labor and supply units, they had access to all the goods and provisions starving Germans living in the ruins of their country yearned for. African-American cultural expressions such as jazz, defamed and banned by the Nazis, were another reason so many Germans were drawn to their Black liberators. White America was stunned to see how much black GIs enjoyed their time abroad, and how much they dreaded their <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5630897-the-last-of-the-conquerors">return home</a> to the U.S.</p>
<p>By 1947, when the Cold War was heating up, the reality of the segregated Jim Crow Army in Germany was becoming a major embarrassment for the U.S. government. The Soviet Union and East German communist propaganda relentlessly attacked the U.S. and challenged its claim to be the leader of the “free world.” Again and again, they would point to the segregated military in West Germany, and to Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. to make their case.</p>
<h2>Coming ‘home’</h2>
<p>Newly returned veterans, civil rights advocates and the Black press took advantage of that Cold War constellation. They evoked America’s mission of democracy in Germany to push for change at home. Responding to that pressure, the first institution of the U.S. to integrate was the U.S. military, made possible by Truman’s 1948 <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=84">Executive Order 9981</a>. That monumental step, in turn, paved the way for the 1954 Supreme Court decision in <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-v-board">Brown v. Board of Education</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hosea Williams, World War II Army veteran and civil rights activist, rallies demonstrators in Selma, Ala. 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The veterans who had been abroad electrified and energized the larger struggle to make America live up to its promise of democracy and justice. They joined the NAACP in record numbers and founded new chapters of that organization in the South, despite a <a href="http://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans">wave of violence against returning veterans</a>. The veterans of World War II and the Korean War became the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, Hosea Williams and Aaron Henry are some of the better-known names, but countless others helped advance the struggle. </p>
<p>About one-third of the leaders in the civil rights movement were veterans of World War II.</p>
<p>They fought for a better America in the streets of the South, at their workplaces in the North, as leaders in the NAACP, as plaintiffs before the Supreme Court and also within the U.S. military to make it a more inclusive institution. They were also the men of the hour at the 1963 March on Washington, when their military training and expertise was crucial to ensure that the day would not be marred by agitators opposed to civil rights. </p>
<p>“We structured the March on Washington like an army formation,” <a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/index.php/oral-histories-6?id=57">recalled</a> veteran Joe Hairston.</p>
<p>For these veterans, the 2009 and 2013 inaugurations of President Barack Obama were triumphant moments in their long struggle for a better America and a more just world. Many never thought they would live to see the day that an African-American would lead their country.</p>
<p><em>To learn more about the contributions of African-American GIs, visit “<a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/">The Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GIs, and Germany</a>” digital archive.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Höhn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When war broke out, Black Americans fought in segregated units to serve their country. The breath of freedom they experienced in Europe flamed the fight for equality when they returned home.Maria Höhn, Professor and Chair of History, Vassar CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634842016-08-19T13:52:35Z2016-08-19T13:52:35ZHow bigotry crushed the dreams of an all-black Little League team<p>The civil rights movement is often told in terms of court decisions, bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins, freedom riders, brutal beatings and racist demagogues. It’s rarely told from the point of view of children, who suffered in ways that left physical and emotional scars. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/little-league-world-series/2015/08/little_league_world_series_att_4.html">hundreds of thousands of spectators</a> convene in Williamsport, Pennsylvania to watch the Little League World Series – and millions watch the games <a href="http://www.espn.com/moresports/story/_/page/LittleLeagueWorldSeries/little-league-world-series-espn">on ESPN</a> – few will know the story of the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars, an all-black team that was denied the chance to compete.</p>
<p>When I was a journalism professor at the College of Charleston, I first learned about this story – how the presence of a single black all-star team was enough to cause one of the biggest crises in Little League history. The white teams in South Carolina <a href="http://www.si.com/vault/1995/10/30/8098327/little-leagues-civil-war-in-55-a-black-allstar-team-was-sidelined-by-a-racial-boycott-in-south-carolina">refused to play against them</a>. Hundreds of Southern white teams left Little League Baseball in protest and joined a <a href="http://www.si.com/vault/1995/10/30/8098327/little-leagues-civil-war-in-55-a-black-allstar-team-was-sidelined-by-a-racial-boycott-in-south-carolina">segregated youth baseball organization</a>, Little Boys Baseball, Inc., which became <a href="http://www.espn.com/espn/wire?id=2126814">Dixie Youth Baseball</a>.</p>
<p>More than 60 years later, to many former Cannon Street players, the lost opportunity still stings.</p>
<h2>A four-team black league is born</h2>
<p>In 1953, Robert Morrison, president of the Cannon Street YMCA, <a href="https://ussporthistory.com/2014/09/01/baseball-dreams-deferred-the-story-of-the-cannon-street-y-m-c-a-all-stars-part-two/">petitioned Little League Baseball</a> to create a league for black teams, and Little League Baseball granted the charter. A year later, dozens of 11- and 12-year-old boys were selected for the four-team league.</p>
<p>They played on a field of grass and gravel at Harmon Field in Charleston, a city with a long history of racial strife. In 1861, the Civil War began in Charleston harbor, where <a href="http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/sectionii_introduction/africans_in_carolina">hundreds of thousands of slaves</a> had been brought to the United States from the 1600s to the 1800s. The field also wasn’t far from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/18/for-charlestons-emanuel-a-m-e-church-one-of-the-oldest-in-america-shooting-is-another-painful-chapter-in-long-history/">Emanuel AME church</a>, where nine blacks were murdered during a prayer meeting in 2015. </p>
<p>At some point in the season, the best players were selected for the league’s <a href="http://1955cannonstreetallstars.weebly.com/our-story.html">all-star team</a>. Cannon Street YMCA officials then registered the all-star team for the Charleston city tournament, which included the all-star teams for the all-white leagues in the city.</p>
<p>The team’s coaches told the players that they would keep playing as long as they kept winning – all the way to the Little League World Series, which is held every year in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. They had no reason to think otherwise: The coaches knew that the Little League Baseball prohibited racial discrimination.</p>
<h2>Dixie fights back</h2>
<p>1954 was also the year that the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional in <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_brown.html">Brown v. Board of Education</a>, which forever changed the dynamic of racial discrimination in the United States. </p>
<p>No state resisted integration more than South Carolina, and no politician fought harder against racial equality than the state’s junior U.S. senator, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/us/strom-thurmond-foe-of-integration-dies-at-100.html?pagewanted=all">Strom Thurmond</a>, who, while governor, ran for president as a segregationist Dixiecrat in 1948. </p>
<p>So when the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars registered for the city’s Little League tournament in July 1955, all the white teams withdrew. The Cannon Street team won by forfeit and advanced to the state tournament. </p>
<p>Danny Jones, the state’s director of Little League Baseball, petitioned the organization to create a segregated state tournament. Peter McGovern, executive director of Little League Baseball, refused Jones’ request because Little League Baseball prohibited racial segregation. He said that any team that refused to play the Cannon Street team would be banned from the organization. </p>
<p>Thurmond <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ol-Strom-Unauthorized-Biography-Thurmond/dp/1570035148">let it be known</a> to Jones that an integrated tournament could not be permitted. In the end, Jones urged all the white teams to withdraw from the state tournament. He then resigned from Little League Baseball, created the Little Boys League, and wrote <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1540-5818.2013.12003.x/asset/jsch12003.pdf;jsessionid=D5593EB3804ABCCB6C6841C1DB52C778.f01t04?v=1&t=irxh8hld&s=72bc5a4257faaa62863d61fb23203f9ae8cd1de0">the league’s charter, which prohibited blacks</a>.</p>
<p>The Little Boys League – which was rebranded as Dixie League Baseball – soon replaced Little League in other southern states; within six years, there would be 390 such leagues spanning most of the former Confederacy. It would be decades before Little League Baseball returned to South Carolina; last year, the Northwood team of Taylors, South Carolina, <a href="http://www.wyff4.com/sports/little-league-team-from-taylors-is-one-win-away-from-williamsport/34659468">became the first team</a> from the state to play in the Little League World Series since 1950.</p>
<p>Having won the South Carolina tournament by forfeit, the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars prepared for the regional tournament in Rome, Georgia, where the state’s governor, Marvin Griffin, objected to an integrated tournament. If youth baseball could be integrated, so, too, could schools, swimming pools and municipal parks, he said. </p>
<p>“One break in the dike,” <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1540-5818.2013.12003.x/asset/jsch12003.pdf;jsessionid=D5593EB3804ABCCB6C6841C1DB52C778.f01t04?v=1&t=irxh8hld&s=72bc5a4257faaa62863d61fb23203f9ae8cd1de0">Griffin said</a>, “and the relentless sea will rush in and destroy us.” </p>
<h2>Let them play!</h2>
<p>At the time, Little League rules said that teams could only advance by playing and winning, so the Cannon Street’s state championship was ruled invalid because it had come by forfeit. </p>
<p>Despite the unfair circumstances, Little League executive director Peter McGovern <a href="http://1955cannonstreetallstars.weebly.com/our-story.html">decided against making an exception</a> for the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars. </p>
<p>He did, however, <a href="http://1955cannonstreetallstars.weebly.com/our-story.html">invite the team</a> to be the guests of Little League Baseball at the World Series. They arrived by bus the night before the championship game on August 26, 1955, which was between teams from Morrisville, Pennsylvania, and Merchantville, New Jersey, an integrated team. </p>
<p>The Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars and their coaches were introduced before the game, and the players remember hearing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cannon-street-all-stars-reminding-america-how-far-weve-come/2012/01/10/gIQA6rlwrP_story.html?utm_term=.70228bee1a28">a loud voice</a> from the bleachers.</p>
<p>“Let them play!” it boomed.</p>
<p>Others in the crowd <a href="onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1540-5818.2013.12003.x/asset/jsch12003.pdf;jsessionid=D5593EB3804ABCCB6C6841C1DB52C778.f01t04?v=1&t=irxh8hld&s=72bc5a4257faaa62863d61fb23203f9ae8cd1de0">joined in</a>. </p>
<p><em>Let them play! Let them play!</em></p>
<p>John Rivers, who played second base for the team, told me he can still “hear it now.” </p>
<p>After being introduced to the crowd, the Cannon Street All-Stars returned to their seats and watched other boys live out their dreams. <a href="https://scontent.fphl1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/306446_382598258479266_1270751551_n.jpg?oh=7301a0b882e2b34892bda471d3344066&oe=584E8536">A photograph</a> from the day reveals the disappointment on their faces. </p>
<p>On the following day – August 28, 1955 – the team got back on its bus to return to Charleston. It was the same day that <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till">Emmett Till</a>, not much older than the players on the team, was brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi, for reportedly whistling at a white woman. </p>
<p>The boys and girls who play in this year’s tournament will forever remember the experience. The surviving members of the Cannon Street All-Stars, who are in their mid-70s, never forgot what they were denied.</p>
<p>Rivers, who went on to become a successful architect, says this lesson is no less relevant today.</p>
<p>“It’s part of American history,” he said. “It’s part of the civil rights movement. You strip away the baseball and it’s about the 1950s movement.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Charleston’s Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars thought they’d have a chance to compete for a spot in the coveted Little League World Series. But South Carolina’s Little League director had other ideas.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/508312015-11-19T11:16:18Z2015-11-19T11:16:18ZExplainer: Why transgender students need ‘safe’ bathrooms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116797/original/image-20160330-28483-1xb0cki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's the fuss over gender-neutral bathrooms?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/denverjeffrey/6859753101">Jeffrey Beall</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The newest front line in the battle for LGBTQ safety and dignity involves bathroom access for the transgender community. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/gavin-grimm-just-wanted-to-use-the-bathroom-he-didnt-think-the-nation-would-debate-it/2016/08/30/23fc9892-6a26-11e6-ba32-5a4bf5aad4fa_story.html">national spotlight</a> has turned to transgender individuals who are finding their ability to use public bathrooms <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/jackie-evancho-transgender-sister-bathroom.html">under investigation</a> – and sometimes attack – by school boards and state legislators.</p>
<p>But why has transgender bathroom use garnered such attention? And how will it impact transgender students?</p>
<p>My research shows how political and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsi.12233/abstract">legal battles</a> over LGBTQ rights can negatively impact the daily lives of LGBTQ individuals and families. Right now, transgender students are currently suffering significant setbacks at the local, state and federal level, limiting their access to public bathrooms and threatening their health and safety. </p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<h2>The current state of transgender bathroom rights</h2>
<p>On Feb. 22, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-administration-rolls-back-protections-for-transgender-students/2017/02/22/550a83b4-f913-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.7f64fc4b5f0c">rescinded</a> a key protection issued by former President Barack Obama. Obama’s <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201605-title-ix-transgender.pdf">2016 “dear colleague” letter</a> required schools that receive federal funding to accommodate a transgender student’s gender identity when granting access to bathrooms or other gender-specified facilities.</p>
<p>In her explanation of Trump’s directive, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos argued that although “protecting all students, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/betsy-devos-protecting-lgbtq-students-should-be-key-priority-for-all-schools/">including LGBTQ students</a>” is “a key priority for the department,” the issue of transgender bathroom access is “best solved at the state and local levels.” </p>
<p>However, as the past year indicates, there are problems with leaving this critical civil rights issue up to state legislatures.</p>
<p>For instance, at least <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/-bathroom-bill-legislative-tracking635951130.aspx">10 states</a> are considering bills that would require individuals to use multi-stall public bathrooms that match their biological gender – and at least two impose criminal sanctions on any violation. </p>
<p>State bills like these would take precedence over local efforts to enact anti-discrimination policies. North Carolina, for example, passed one such state law last year: the now infamous <a href="http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015E2/Bills/House/PDF/H2v4.pdf">HB2 bathroom bill</a>. The bill was introduced in direct response to a <a href="http://charlottenc.gov/NonDiscrimination/Pages/default.aspx">Charlotte City Council ordinance</a> outlawing discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Arkansas legislators prevailed on Feb. 23 in a similar battle with local officials over transgender bathroom rights. The <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/arkansas-supreme-court-strikes-lgbt-protections-fayetteville/">Arkansas Supreme Court overturned</a> a nondiscrimination ordinance <a href="http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/09/08/early-vote-favors-fayetteville-civil-rights-ordinance-68-32">passed by the city of Fayetteville</a>, ruling that one city cannot expand the state’s anti-discrimination protection to include gender identity.</p>
<p>In both of these cases, the state laws and city ordinances are in direct conflict, but the state takes precedence, making it illegal for transgender individuals to use the bathrooms matching their gender identity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159220/original/image-20170302-14714-1q6ogv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gavin Grimm’s case is scheduled to appear before the Supreme Court in March. It’s unclear whether Trump’s reversal on the Obama administration’s guidance on transgender bathrooms will stall the case.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Helber</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As is true in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556">many</a> <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-307">cases</a> <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-102">involving</a> <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1995/94-1039">LGBTQ rights</a>, the Supreme Court may end up having the last word on the issue. The court is set to hear oral arguments in March for a case involving a <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gloucester-county-school-board-v-g-g/">transgender boy’s fight for adequate access to restrooms in his high school</a>.</p>
<p>All told, only <a href="https://www.aclu.org/map/non-discrimination-laws-state-state-information-map">13 states (and the District of Columbia)</a> explicitly protect against gender identity discrimination in public schools. Without these statewide protections – and with local governments being overruled by state law – many transgender students living in the remaining 37 states cannot feel safe when using school bathrooms.</p>
<h2>Issues of physical, emotional safety</h2>
<p>So why do we need legal protection against bathroom restrictions?</p>
<p>The stakes are high for transgender students. </p>
<p>Studies show that transgender students could be harassed, sexually assaulted or subjected to other physical violence when required to use a gendered bathroom.</p>
<p>Recent studies suggest that over 50 percent of transgender individuals <a href="http://faculty.mu.edu.sa/public/uploads/1425310920.5389violence%20transgender.pdf">will experience sexual assault</a> in their lifetime (a rate that is far higher than for nontransgendered individuals), and that (absent protections) using bathrooms could pose a significant threat of physical harm or harassment. </p>
<p>One survey, commissioned by <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/">UCLA’s Williams Institute</a>, found that <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Herman-Gendered-Restrooms-and-Minority-Stress-June-2013.pdf#page=7">68 percent of participants</a> were subjected to homophobic slurs while trying to use the bathroom. <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Herman-Gendered-Restrooms-and-Minority-Stress-June-2013.pdf#page=7">Nine percent</a> confronted physical violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116803/original/image-20160330-28451-kkodni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Studies have shown how use of bathroom results in assaults.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zappowbang/466812968/in/photolist-Hfxes-eefZ2p-9kV8Zc-ehrBL8-ehxizq-7m27qQ-9h8L5F-mYXfHf-8xuFeH-9hnH2c-ehryFP-ehrzi4-ehrzCK-8xxGKu-9kYdKC-bM5Hq4-gndp7V-i77iJ6-i76zC3-9kYbaC-nzxgu8-biTybn-9kRX8i-i76Upd-9kYbso-i77kTX-eaviCn-7Haptx-8UsHwV-i76tgM-9kYbWu-9kV514-Hfx97-asDYat-9kYdx3-3onp1-7Haw9k-HfAdV-9kV2bu-esvjh-8xuFsx-9kYbKf-i76Qyq-HUqgR-HTXK2-8xxGAs-8xtRp2-9kV6xp-nYTMPE-7kXdV8">Justin Henry</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another study that surveyed transgender individuals in Washington, D.C. found that <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Herman-Gendered-Restrooms-and-Minority-Stress-June-2013.pdf#page=7">70 percent</a> were either verbally threatened, physically assaulted or prevented in some way from using the bathroom of their choice. Some experienced more than one form of such behavior.</p>
<p>Yet another survey found that <a href="http://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/Gender_Neutral_Bathrooms.pdf#page=2">26 percent of transgender students</a> in New York were denied access to their preferred bathrooms altogether.</p>
<p>The result? Transgender students need to constantly weigh the trade-offs as they consider bathroom options.</p>
<p>As one University of Washington student <a href="http://www.king5.com/news/local/seattle/uw-students-call-for-more-gender-neutral-restrooms_20160418093106605/140291974">articulates</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Do I choose physical safety or emotional safety? Do I choose physical health or mental health?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Bathroom redesign</h2>
<p>In response to demands from transgender advocates, parents and transgender students, administrators from California to Texas, in elementary schools and colleges, have considered the costs and benefits of redesigning bathrooms to accommodate transgender students.</p>
<p>For example, students at the <a href="http://pittnews.com/62434/news/beds-and-bathrooms-pitt-goes-gender-neutral/">University of Pittsburgh</a> can now use bathrooms that conform to their own gender identity. Arizona State University, Ohio State and Wesleyan University, among several others, <a href="http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/gender-neutral-bathrooms-are-opening-their-doors-in-houston-and-elsewhere-6392063">have instituted policies requiring all new construction to include gender-neutral bathrooms</a>. They are assessing how to modify the existing bathrooms to become gender-neutral or single-stall facilities.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102265/original/image-20151118-23204-bx0tjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Universities are bringing in policies to have gender-neutral bathrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/taedc/15799031740/in/photolist-q57aGY-jeZ6FB-7h4zDD-uDWfrH-e7hipR-mEwTCq-qLuCEj-qfxPeM-e7nVzj-NHLdq-dvcDVd-8q94PM-k6LNzB-e7nVXJ-ndU2MK-nb7xLz-k6CTQd-e7nWHU-uDWYbe-uDgBjy-un7BVA-un7YdY-upwMXE-5otHqH-gdKmK-4xfLxD-k6CBsd-k6CQY1-o4o72q-k6BfFz-63nebf-k6ATcT-77ZsTH-7mTVrd-nDmSCD-7cARDf-5ELJFo-5bWgco-8TNgHF-tGRLMK-icYznx-AxQW98-xv4Ymq-wEgLAS-uBi2JN-sTy3er-regVdu-qVBa4W-qgEiNw-rbhMhB">Ted Eytan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As increasing numbers of primary- and secondary-school-aged children are identifying as transgender, public schools have become “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/the-k-12-binary/398060/">ground zero</a>” for fights over bathroom safety.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bathrooms-at-Miraloma-Elementary-in-S-F-go-6481544.php">Miraloma Elementary School</a>, in San Francisco, for instance, removed gendered signs from many of their bathrooms.</p>
<p>About two years ago, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the <a href="http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/di/eo/faqs.asp">School Success and Opportunity Act</a>, requiring that all students be able to access bathrooms or locker rooms that are consistent with their own gender identity in California’s K-12 settings.</p>
<h2>Need for safety</h2>
<p>But these school or district-level efforts have been either limited to states with existing gender identity protections (like California) or have been overturned by school board or state action. </p>
<p>This is why Obama’s directive was so important. Regardless of where a student lived or attended school, it provided students with legal protection.</p>
<p>Without the directive, and despite DeVos’ assurances, bathroom options will be limited for many transgender students.</p>
<p>Either they have to travel quite a distance to get to the nearest single-stall gender-neutral bathroom, or just “hold it in.” </p>
<p>Such options have clear drawbacks and health risks. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/opinion/for-transgender-americans-legal-battles-over-restrooms.html">Urinary tract infections</a>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/10/14/3712394/wisconsin-transgender-school-discrimination/">depression and even suicide</a> could be among them. </p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00918369.2016.1157998">study</a> of transgender individuals found that over 60 percent of participants who had experienced some form of bathroom exclusion had attempted suicide – a rate far higher than among respondents who had experienced no constraints on bathroom use.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159223/original/image-20170302-14695-we9oh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Signage outside a restroom at 21c Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina, May 12, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Importantly, the risks of physical and verbal assault – as well as the attendant risks of depression and suicidality – are present even when a transgender student uses the bathroom that matches his or her birth-assigned gender. </p>
<p>When students who, in every visible way, present as their identified gender are forced to use bathrooms that match their biological genders, reactions are strong. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/19/as-a-trans-man-i-never-felt-scared-or-unsafe-then-north-carolina-passed-its-discrimination-law/?utm_term=.c57e68dcdbc2">Payton McGarry</a>, a transgender male, describes being “screamed at, pushed, shoved or even slapped” when he used the women’s restroom after he began to develop male attributes.</p>
<p>This leaves transgender individuals with no real public bathroom option. As <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/what-its-like-to-use-a-public-bathroom-while-trans-20160331">Brynne Tannehill,</a> a transgender woman, describes, you could use “the women’s room and probably be OK and break the law.” Or “you walk into the men’s room… and you stay and that immediately marks you as transgender.” In this instance, argues Tannehill, following the law is far riskier. “Last year, we had 22 or 23 trans women murdered.”</p>
<p>As a result, sometimes transgender college students see their <a href="http://hub.jhu.edu/2014/11/25/homewood-bathroom-signs">best option</a> as renting a house near campus so they can go home to use the bathroom.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/transgender-hotline-reports-flood-calls-after-trump-walks-back-federal-n725796">Recent transgender hotline activity</a> suggests that Trump’s actions have provoked fear among transgendered individuals and their allies. As news spread of his new directive, hotlines were flooded with calls. For instance, in January, Trans Lifeline received on average 139 calls per day. On Feb. 23, the lifeline fielded 379 calls. The crisis hotline has also seen a marked increase in “high severity calls” – those indicating “immediate crisis” – since Trump’s inauguration.</p>
<p>Legal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are continuing their fight in court, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/north-carolina-gender-bathrooms-bill/">arguing</a> that these bathroom bills “push ugly and fundamentally untrue stereotypes that are based on fear and ignorance.”</p>
<p>For many, though, Trump’s decision to prioritize states’ rights means no bathroom options for trans students – especially in states that prohibit any local accommodation.</p>
<p>“Trans women are killed for using the men’s restroom, and they’re jailed for using the women’s restroom,” explains <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/04/28/transgender-bathroom-bills-discrimination/32594395/">Tyler Beebe</a>, a 27-year-old trans woman. “In the end, what choice do we have?”</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published on Nov. 19, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Gash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The bathroom has become a battleground for transgender rights — and rightfully so. Research shows that bathroom restrictions threaten the health and safety of the transgender community.Alison Gash, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/388182015-03-26T10:29:30Z2015-03-26T10:29:30ZShades of segregated past in today’s campus troubles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75702/original/image-20150323-17709-iqq6uf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many of today's campus troubles have their roots in a racial past of American universities </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml">Book image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Demands to rename <a href="http://www.sciway.net/sc-photos/pickens-county/tillman-hall.html">Tillman Hall at Clemson University</a>, the circulation of a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/08/frat-racist-sae-oklahoma_n_6828212.html">video</a> showing a racist chant at the University of Oklahoma and the discovery of a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/03/21/3637251/fraternity-suspended-notebook-detailing-rape-lynching/">fraternity pledge book</a> discussing lynching at North Carolina State University demonstrate how persistent racial issues are on college campuses. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tillman-Reconstruction-Supremacy-Morrison-Southern/dp/0807825301/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1427037879">Benjamin Tillman</a> was a post-Civil War politician, racial demagogue and participant in racial violence, who was critical to Clemson University’s founding in the late-nineteenth century. </p>
<p>Tillman was not the only one. The University of North Carolina trustees are considering a request this week to <a href="http://abc11.com/education/students-demanding-rename-of-unc-building-named-for-kkk-leader/501011/">rename Saunders Hall</a>. The building was named in 1922 for William Saunders, a leader of the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan. </p>
<p>Buildings named after participants in racial violence and songs celebrating the segregation as well as the lynching of black people are not merely offensive. They recall the violence used to maintain all-white institutions for much of this country’s history.</p>
<p>In fact, colleges and universities historically have supported hierarchies of race and other forms of difference from their founding in the colonial era through the civil rights struggles of the late-20th century.</p>
<p>As a co-founder and director of the <a href="http://shared.web.emory.edu/emory/news/releases/2010/02/transforming-community-project-creates-agents-of-change.html#.VQOV4kivLvk">Transforming Community Project</a>, I used the history of race at Emory University to help members of the university community understand the meaning of equity for the institution today. </p>
<p>In 2011, I co-organized, “Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies,” the first <a href="http://shared.web.emory.edu/emory/news/releases/2011/01/slavery-and-the-university-focus-of-emory-conference.html#.VQOViEivLvk">conference</a> on the history of slavery and racial discrimination at institutions of higher education. Scholars and administrators from across the United States shared the troubled past of slavery and segregation of a majority of colleges and universities. </p>
<h2>American universities were connected to slave trade</h2>
<p>Today many see the goals of higher education institutions as providing access to all seeking upward economic, political and social mobility, regardless of race, class, gender and religion. But it was not always so. </p>
<p>Colleges and universities built curricula and performed research that supported the enslavement of Africans.
Money from <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/09/17/223420533/how-slavery-shaped-americas-oldest-and-most-elite-colleges">the African slave trade and slavery</a> financed institutions of higher education.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75703/original/image-20150323-17696-esium4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Many American colleges used or owned slave labor in the past.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml">Hand image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Many college campuses used or owned enslaved blacks, who erected and maintained the buildings and grounds, and served the faculty, students and administrators. At many schools, students, faculty and administrators brought their slaves with them to campus. </p>
<p>One might imagine that this was true only in the South. But the most prestigious educational institutions in the North – <a href="http://www.harvardandslavery.com/">Harvard</a>, <a href="http://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course_details.xml?courseid=012214&term=1142">Princeton</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/opinion/23mon3.html?_r=0">Brown</a>, and others – were intimately connected to the slave trade and slavery.</p>
<p>Most students, who came to these schools from all over the United States, were supporters of slavery, and some were wealthy slave owners themselves.</p>
<h2>Scholars believed in racial inferiority</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ebony-Ivy-Troubled-Americas-Universities/dp/1608194027/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427307593&sr=1-1&keywords=craig+wilder">University scholars</a> of the time argued that the racial inferiority of people of African descent justified their enslavement; and that enslavement would bring blacks closer to Christian salvation. </p>
<p>Faculty and students also argued for the centrality of slavery to the nation’s economic success. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ebony-Ivy-Troubled-Americas-Universities/dp/1596916818/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1427308580">Coursework</a> in history, religion and other subjects supported the moral and political correctness of slavery. </p>
<p>The influence of college graduates reached beyond North America into slave-holding societies in the Caribbean and South America. Graduates took up positions among the slave-holding elite as plantation owners and politicians. Others became ministers or educators who upheld slavery through preaching and teaching. </p>
<p>Those who spoke against slavery on college campuses were few, and faculty spoke out against slavery at the threat of losing their jobs. In the United States before the Civil War, only anti-slavery colleges such as <a href="http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Oberlin_College">Oberlin College in Ohio</a> were consistent in their opposition to slavery and racism. </p>
<p>Following the Civil War, historically white colleges North and South diverged only slightly in their willingness to admit non-white students. These schools also limited or prevented the enrollment of other groups, such as non-Protestant Christians or Jews. </p>
<h2>Quota systems were used by universities in the north</h2>
<p>In the south, legal segregation prevented black students from attending colleges and universities. In northern schools, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Student-Diversity-Big-Three-Princeton/dp/1412814618/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_6">quota systems</a> limited the number of blacks who could attend.</p>
<p>In both North and South, schools limited the enrollment of non-Protestant Christians, such as Catholics; and Jews, among other groups. These practices reinforced racial and religious hierarchies until the late-twentieth century. </p>
<p>The threat or use of violence was central to maintaining racial and religious segregation in all parts of society. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75704/original/image-20150323-17699-b50in1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ku Klux Klan members were also active on American college campuses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml">Ku Klux Klan image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>At the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1924, Ku Klux Klan members (including the city’s mayor and police chief) <a href="http://catholicgators.org/our-founder">kidnapped and castrated a Catholic priest</a> serving the small group of Catholic students there. They believed that the priest was converting Protestant students to Catholicism. </p>
<p>When Tillman supported the founding of Clemson University in 1889, he had already established himself as in favor of upholding racial segregation by violence. There was no question that the university would be for whites only.</p>
<h2>Court cases and funding threats forced desegregation</h2>
<p>State schools established for whites maintained racially exclusionary practices towards blacks until forced to integrate by Supreme Court rulings <a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1949/1949/1949_44">Sweatt v. Painter</a> in 1950 and <a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1952/1952_1/">Brown v. Board of Education</a> in 1954.</p>
<p>Pressure from national professional organizations who threatened to withhold accreditation, as well as from the federal government and foundations who threatened to withhold grant funding from segregated institutions, forced most <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Desegregating-Private-Higher-Education-South/dp/0807154474/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=">private institutions to desegregate in the early 1960s. </a></p>
<p>However, it was not until the 1970s that segregation for non-whites and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Student-Diversity-Big-Three-Princeton/dp/1412814618/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_6">quotas</a> for non-Christian students in universities were completely abolished. </p>
<p>Southern institutions fought desegregation through a series of law suits. And the first African Americans students to attend these schools suffered acute harassment. </p>
<p>At <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2240973">the University of Texas</a> for instance, in 1950, the Supreme Court ruling in Sweatt v. Painter forced the law school to admit <a href="http://ddce.utexas.edu/sweattsymposium/2013/03/15/legacy-of-heman-sweatt/">Heman Sweatt</a>, its first black student. </p>
<p>During Sweatt’s first semester on campus, someone burned a cross at the law school and inscribed KKK (Ku Klux Klan) on the steps of the law building. Most faculty members and students at the law school did not support Sweatt. He ended up leaving after two years without a law degree. </p>
<p>In 1954, as part of its continuing resistance to desegregation, the University of Texas named a new dorm for <a href="http://deadconfederates.com/2010/07/12/william-stewart-simkins-the-klan-and-the-law-school/">William Stewart Simkins</a>, one of the law school’s first professors. </p>
<p>Simkins, a native of the same South Carolina county as Benjamin Tillman, was also a founder of the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/harrymoore/terror/k.html">Florida Ku Klux Klan</a>. Both Simkins and Tillman boasted of using violence to enforce racial segregation. </p>
<p>Honoring Simkins in 1954 symbolically reinforced the school’s commitment to segregation. Similar actions occurred throughout the south and included the reclamation of the Confederate flag by southerners and lynching of civil rights activists as part of a “<a href="http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25349">massive resistance</a>” to desegregation. </p>
<h2>Significant progress on campuses</h2>
<p>The events occurring on campuses today echo these troubled times, and reveal the continuing unease that some have with diverse campuses. But significant progress has been made in the 65 years since Heman Sweatt attempted his law degree at University of Texas. </p>
<p>The vast majority of higher education institutions recognize that serving a diverse campus community is of intrinsic value to the educational enterprise and to the nation at large. </p>
<p>As a result, many schools are struggling to align their campuses with these changes by renaming buildings and limiting racist behavior. </p>
<p>In 2010, the University of Texas <a href="https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsi12">renamed</a> Simkins Hall to Creekside. At the University of Oklahoma, following the circulation of a video in which members of the local chapter of <a href="http://www.sae.net/page.aspx?pid=756">Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE)</a>, the only national fraternity founded in the South, sing of excluding from their fraternity, and hanging, “niggers,” the national fraternity leadership <a href="http://www.sae.net/home/pages/news/news---media-statements---fraternity-leadership-closes-chapter-at-university-of-oklahoma">closed the chapter</a>. </p>
<p>The Pi Kappa Phi chapter at North Carolina State has been suspended as university and national fraternity officials investigate <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pi-kappa-phi-nc-state-notebook">the pledge book</a> that contains references to lynching and rape.</p>
<p>The landscape of US higher education today would be completely unrecognizable to Benjamin Tillman and William Stewart Simkins. </p>
<p>This is a profound achievement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leslie M. Harris received funding from the Ford Foundation's Difficult Dialogues Initiative, 2007-2011. She is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center.</span></em></p>At the root of today’s racial troubles on campuses is the past, when most American universities were intimately connected to slave trade and slavery. Harvard, Princeton, Brown were no exception.Leslie M Harris, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.