Pitt not rated as top black college

Nearly hidden from view in a corner table, Darra Duckett and her sister sat eating dinner at… Nearly hidden from view in a corner table, Darra Duckett and her sister sat eating dinner at Fuel ‘ Fuddle in Oakland earlier this week.

At the table next to them sat a number of mostly male college students, one of whom was wearing a Pitt shirt. Although Duckett admitted that the guys had been drinking, she still didn’t completely excuse them from their following comments:

“What? Black people can vote? They shouldn’t be able to do that.”

And, sarcastically, “Oh, yeah, black people should definitely be allowed to vote.”

This was Duckett’s account of something that she said she has dealt with for much of her life: racism. And Duckett, a black student at Pitt, said that although segregation has ended, racism is far from gone. Even at Pitt.

Black Enterprise — a magazine working to promote black people’s careers — announced the top 50 colleges for black students on Aug. 28, including Florida A’M University, the University of Pennsylvania, Dickinson College and the University of Virginia. Pitt was not on the list.

Out of the top 10 colleges on the list, five are located in the South, eight are private institutions, and five are “historically black colleges and universities.”

Commonly known as HBCUs, these colleges and universities were built during reconstruction to educate former slaves and their children, according to Black Enterprise’s editor in chief, Alfred Edmond.

Because black people could not attend the same schools as white people, HBCUs began by educating their students primarily in agriculture and in various trades. Now, most HBCUs are full-fledged schools that offer a wide variety of programs and include a number of white students.

Mostly funded by wealthy donors, churches and missions, Edmond explained that there was a significant difference between HBCUs and colleges for white people at the beginning of segregation.

“White people didn’t want to go to HBCUs,” Edmond said. “They didn’t offer as much and didn’t receive as much funding.”

But even with the legal ending of segregation, the battle for equal rights still continued. Although President Lyndon Johnson tried to end segregation with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many states had to call the National Guard to dispel racial quarrels that ensued shortly afterwards.

“It wasn’t like all of a sudden white people just opened up the doors,” Edmond said. “It was a gradual process.”

Black people account for approximately 13 percent of America’s population, but Edmond said the black population usually accounts for less than 4 percent of a college population.

In order to make Black Enterprise’s top 50 colleges’ list, a school had to have a black student enrollment of at least 3 percent.

Out of nearly 4,000 colleges and universities in America, only 1,423 schools met this standard. Pitt’s first-year black student population is 9 percent, according to CollegeBoard.com

“In 2007, if a school has more than a 4 percent black population, that’s about as good as you are going to get,” Edmond said.

Another way that Black Enterprise determined the top 50 colleges was by asking black members of higher education — such as professors and faculty members — to rate each school’s academic and social environments on a scale of 1 to 10.

Members of the magazine averaged the total scores, then factored in the school’s black student graduation rates and percentages of black undergraduates.

Edmond explained that Black Enterprise did not ask students, alumni or parents to complete the surveys because they might have biased opinions.

“I know a lot about my school,” Edmond said, who graduated from Rutgers University, “and I know a lot about the school my dad went to, but I don’t know about a bunch of other schools outside of that.”

Edmond said that since many professors have undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees and Ph.D.s, Black Enterprise felt that their opinions carried more weight.

Duckett said the number and type of minority organizations on a college campus is very important to her. She said she knew exactly which groups she would join even before she arrived at Pitt.

While she said that minority organizations were important, she didn’t want to attend a HBCU or a college that had an overwhelming number of black students.

“The world isn’t like that,” Duckett said. “The world is predominately white, and I wanted to emulate the real world.”

Duckett, the vice president of Black Dance Workshop — a dance workshop group that dances to everything from hip-hop to ballet — said that Pitt had a good number of minority organizations, but they lacked enough assistance from Student Government Board and other supporters. According to Duckett, the same group of about 50 people comes to most of their cultural events.

Les Scales, Pitt senior and member of the Roberto Clemente Minority Business Association, said that people are less inclined to attend non-social events.

“We need to be a part of a community that transcends from social events to academic and professional events,” Scales said.

When it comes to getting funding from SGB, some students are not too hopeful.

Zaneta Johnson has given up. A member of Black Dance Workshop, Johnson said that she starts off every year thinking of how to get funding.

“It’s like, how are you going to get to money, because SGB probably won’t give it to you,” Johnson said.

Johnson added that one year, BDW had to show the board members just how ripped and worn out their old costumes were in order to get money for new outfits.

Duckett said she agreed, remembering the times when they lacked enough monetary support from SGB.

“We are the largest dance organization on campus,” Duckett said, “and we have to beg for $500 for a new dance floor.”

Right now, BDW practices in one of the hallways in Bellefield Hall near the vending machines. When the dancers get kicked out, which Duckett said happens often, the group moves to the hallway near room 121 in David Lawrence Hall.

And once they get kicked out of that spot, which is also common, the group moves downstairs to the hallway near the bathrooms.

“We take what we have gratefully,” Duckett said. “I have 60 to 70 other people right there next to me.”

But Duckett said that she understands the problems that Pitt and SGB members face.

According to Duckett, Pitt only has one real dance studio and SGB has to have enough money to provide all student organizations with funding. While she said that her organization does receive some monetary support from SGB, it is not as much as it needs.

“We need a bigger budget,” Duckett said, explaining that the Black Dance Workshop receives double the amount of money from private donations than they do from SGB.

SGB member Joe Leinbach said the board denies money to some student life organizations because of policy issues, not because board members don’t want to support cultural events.

He said SGB can only approve food for cultural issues and that it does not always pay for transportation for other reasons.

“Whether it is black students or white students, [SGB members] are their representatives,” Leinbach said. “If they have concerns, then we can take these issues to the Board of Trustees or the Dean of Students, and we can address them.”

Besides their difficulties with monetary support, black organizations and individuals face a number of other problems on Pitt’s campus.

Scales said the police always seem to be present at black social events, even when they are just in the William Pitt Union. Johnson and Duckett confirmed that police sometimes come to black social events but hardly attend white social events.

“[The shooting at] Duquesne this past weekend didn’t help our situation,” Scales said. “I realize that there are negatives and positives that accompany every race, but sometimes it seems like our race only gets the negative connotations.

“If you look at the news,” Scales continued, “it only shows the negatives.”

Johnson and Duckett both nodded in agreement.

“I’ve never shot anyone,” Johnson said. “And I also don’t have kids. That’s another big one.”

Johnson said that in the past, she went to Student Health and told the doctors that she thought she had a cold. Even though she insisted that she was just coughing, the doctors kept asking her if she was pregnant.

“They kept saying, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?” Johnson said.

But besides the problems on Pitt’s campus, Duckett is grateful that the members in her organization have stuck together. She said she also thinks the friendships that members create contribute to Pitt’s retention rates.

“[BDW] is like a family on campus,” Duckett said. “It’s seldom that people in our organizations drop out off college.”

“You don’t see people who are so close together leave,” Duckett said.