Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Vol. LXIII-No. 25 University of South Carolina, Columbia, S. C. 29208 Monday, December 4, 1972 Syste BY PATRICK TYLER Second in a series President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965 that no matter how bold our legislation in civil rights, we the U. S. could never even the score for Ameri can blacks. In the field of higher education, particularly at USC, attempts are also being made to incorporate blacks into what was pre viously an all-white sys tem. However, Johnson didn't propose that we give up trying and his attitude is witnessed by the Voting Rights Act that went into effect that same year. What the former presi dent was alluding to was a special report compiled by his Assistant Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The report stated that blacks suffer ing from a legacy of slav ery, had developed a fam ily structure that was seri ously out of line with the rest of American Society. This difference in fam ily environment, the report stated, put blacks at a disadvantage when they matured and entered a predominately white society. A year later another report reached the Johnson administration frma onsHpkn Unvrst po -so of ineqite fomf heg ofmeri er,cad delcpedcao fam ily srugtr thinat wsei Thdferenc will fam ilCeronm e th nit a sdtage3 wnhe m itseli Dr. Jones said many blacks have trc with SATs be "econorr at performance levels were different between black school children and white. His findings from inter views and research at 4,000 schools showed that school quality had no bearing on this difference of scholastic achievement between blacks and whites. Those involved in the report, including then Secretary of Health, Edu cation and Welfare John W. Gardner, hypothesized that the difference in achievement levels resulted from the differ ence in cultural surround ings at home. And then a third report came in the winter of 1969 in the "Harvard Edu cational Review" by a Berkeley professor who said that blacks and whites differ in inherited intelligence. He equated the difference in intellect to the average difference in IQ, a test where whites score consistantly higher thnblcs reutedrfrommariedffe ingsad oe. ameeinghewintrlo Brkele rofTesdayh intusellne Heuted may b uble cause of iic, cultural id genetic disadvan tages." position of many people in his field saying that heredity is substantially more important than environmment in deter mining intelligence as measured by the I. Q. tests. However, Herrnstein concluded by saying that intelligence is but one of the yardsticks for measuring human poten tial, and that other tests should supplement the I. Q. test "in describing a person's talents,skills and shortcomings." This discussion on test ing is important in con sidering the position of blacks in South Carolina's higher educational sys tem, particularly at USC. As blacks have become more numerous on this campus, often-asked are: Why aren't there more than six per cent blacks at USC when some 45 per cent of the state's college age population is black? Why is there only a token number of black faculty on the staff? In answer to the first question Dr. Thomas F. Jones, president of the university, said last week that while the number of blacks at USC has risen substantially since last year (from one in30 to one in 160) blacks find it difficult to meet the entr ance requirements here, notably the SAT college entrance test. Jones said the reasons blacks score compara tively lower include "economic, cultural and genetic disadvantages." He explained saying that the tests measure work and number orientation, an area where many blacks are difficient in comparison to whites. To deal with this differ ence, Jones said, the uni versity gives blacks a 50 to 75 point advantage on the SAT scores. He also preju said that a program called "Opportunity Scholars" helps more blacks get into USC even though they may have scored poorly on the SAT. The president said the university at this time is committed to only one kind of learning, that being "cognitive" which stresses word and number orientation. He said that an area in which blacks have excelled, "affective learning," is not now integrated in our teaching system. This "affective area of education is one where personality and speaking areas are developed. Jones said he did not want to comment on future plans of the univer sity to incorporate affec tive skills into USC's cur ricula because he said he might endanger such a . possibility. Considering the ques tion of why there are not more black faculty at USC, Jones said black pro fessors are at short sup ply in the country today and therefore come at a higher price. W. L. Her riford, a vice-provost at USC echoed this argu ment saying that when a position on the staff opens here the university may receive 200 applications and only one of those may be from a black. In order to get the black, Herriford, the university would have to pay a higher price because many other universities may be try ing to lure him to their diced staff. "Why would a black come to USC when he could go to Harvard or somewhere better," Her riford said. However, the vice-provost said, USC is "not out there competing" for these men. Dr.. Jones said that USC is out there trying to recruit black professors, but added "how far do we go in this reverse dis crimination?" The stumbling blocks encountered by blacks in the American educational system have stimulated a great deal of controversy ever since the United States decided that the "separate but equal" doc trine was only living up to one half of the bargain--its separateness. However, as blacks strive toward proportional representa tion in our institutions of higher learning, again noting USC, they are fac ing certain barriers -- such as testing that mere legislation cannot help them overcome. In an article called "Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence" that appeared in the June 1972 issue of "The Atlantic Monthly," William Labov said that it is not cultural, economic or genetic fac tors that give blacks a dis advantage in the Ameri can educational system.He said it is the system itself which caters to and is run by the white middle class with all its peculiarites of speech and social norms, which, in fact, may strike blacks who come from the ghetto or poor rural sur roundings as being from another language or cul ture. Labov said that the problem lies in the basic educational structure in America and that the fight begins there to "even the score"~ for blacks.