Identity bank: research institute launched by College Fund/UNCF has a big job ahead of it - United Negro College Fund

James Michael Brodie

Former Congressman William H. Gray III has to look no further

than his battles on the floor of the U.S., House of Representatives

over race-specific scholarships in justifying how key the College Fund/United

Negro College Fund's newly created Frederick D. Patterson

Research Institute can

be to Black America.

In 1990, when then

Assistant Education Secretary

Michael Williams

created a stir by trying

to eliminate the scholarships,

Gray and other

Black legislators convinced

the George Bush

administration that the

furor Williams created

was groundless by

showing, statistically,

how few race-based

scholarships existed

compared to those

given based on sex, religion,

geography and other factors.

"Here I was as majority whip, with the White House and Justice

Department making major policy -- and we didn't have the facts. it

became clear to me that there was no place in the United States where

you could pick up a phone and quickly get data," explains the UNCF

president and CEO, who touts his brainchild as "the first research

institute of its kind" controlled by the Black community.

"The real point here is that people were making policy

based on perception, not reality," says Gray,

who recently unveiled the new institute,

which will focus research exclusively on the

status of Black students, preschool to

postgraduate.

"We are real excited about this," he says.

"You know, we spend billions of dollars on

education in this country, billions trying to deal

with the problems of minorities -- particularly

African Americans. But what do we base that

expenditure on? Often it's a partial study, an

isolated study. It is not based on fact."

Gray says he expects his data to be "very

much up to date, within a year to two years."

He adds, "There will be a broad range of

original research going on, as well as data

collection. We will use the best scientific

methodologies."

Though he is

vague as to exactly

how the data will

be gathered, Gray

related that in the

course of conducting

original research,

the institute might first

focus on standardized

testing, and

the enrollment

and employment

of African Americans

regionally

and nationally. He

said that the institute

might undertake to gather information

directly from individual schools.

Observers Hopeful

Around the country, observers are hopeful

that the institute can fulfill Gray's vision,

though they are cautious when discussing how

successful the institute, named for UNCF

founder Frederick D. Patterson, can be.

"You want to keep in the front of

America's consciousness how much Blacks

need to achieve education-wise," says Dr.

Kenneth S. Tollett Sr., professor of higher

education policy at Howard University and an

advisor to the American Association of

University Professor's committee on

historically Black institutions and the status of

minorities in the profession. "What is

happening in the country now is that people

are just washing their hands of the problems"

in the Black community, particularly in light

of the Los Angeles riots of a few years ago and

growing racial divisions on several issues.

"The hope is that there is a reservoir of

decency in both Blacks and whites that will

cause them to want to direct these deficits," he

says. "The research also would

indicate that there still is a

need for Head Start,

affirmative action and special

consideration."

Dr. Reginald Wilson, senior

scholar at the American

Council on Education, has

spoken with Gray about his

plans for the institute and

sees a potential benefit. "It

depends on what it's going to

do." says Wilson. "The

institute potentially could do

a good job."

"For example, Blacks have

lower SAT scores than any

other group, and Blacks have

been here longer than any

other group. There are not the

language barriers

that Hispanics and Asians

we have not been isolated

like Native Americans

have been, so why are the

scores lower?" Wilson

muses. "Nobody has looked

those scores to determine

exactly what has happened.

Right now all we can do is

speculate because we don't

have the time or the resources

to come up with the answers."

"In any research project, the most crucial

item is what you are assuming when you put the

project together. The questions you ask are

directly related to the kinds of answers you

generate," says Dr. William King, professor of

Afro-American studies at the University of

Colorado's Department of Ethnic

Studies -- formerly the Center

for Studies of Ethnicity and

Race in America.

"If what they have is a

response to funding cutbacks

that's one thing. But if what

they have is their version of

what has been done before,

then it may or may not be

something new."

`No One to Call'

The UNCF/College Fund

raised $5 million in

endowments over the past four

years to launch the institute.

Gray tapped University of

Michigan's Dr. Michael T.

Nettles in December to head

the institute on a part-time

basis. Nettles will hire staff, set

priorities and coordinate data.

Both men project that their

first report will come out by

the end of the year. Gray

expects the data will be

current, perhaps no older than

a year or two.

"The institute has to have some level of

autonomy to be able to report the facts, so that

people can review them as things to work on.

We will be trying to tell the balanced story,"

says Nettles, whose career in education research

in Tennessee, Iowa and Michigan dates to the

1970s.

"We are trying to persuade some people

about priorities," he says. "We won't try to

address every single education issue immediately.

That's not to say that at some point in our

history that we would not have touched on most

of the vital issues of the time."

While there are several organizations

looking at different aspects of Black educational

life -- such as NAFEO, the joint Center for

Political Research, the Children's Defense Fund,

the American Council on Education, the

American Association of University Professors,

even the Census Bureau and the Department of

Education -- none covers the full scope, argues

Gray.

"If you, wanted to know how many Black

males there are in American colleges, who are

you going to call?" Gray asks. "There is no one

to call. There is no one."

Resources Drying Up

In recent years, such organizations as the

Institute for the Study of Education Policy at

Howard University closed its doors, and the

Education Department's Office of Educational

Research and Improvement has been cut back,

leading many to fear that what little data there

was on Black education is in danger of drying up.

"There really aren't many people doing

that" says Tollett. "There was no think tank

that was dealing with issues affecting Blacks

from a Black perspective. You have a lot of

research going on regarding the condition of

Blacks but little of it is controlled by Blacks."

Adds Wilson, "We at ACE have had

increasing difficulty in getting statistics on the

progress of minorities in higher education, and I

would assume that those institutions that are

devoted to K-12 education are having similar

difficulties. We depend on the federal

government for these national statistics on

minority progress, and if we are having this

much difficulty, I would imagine that no matter

how well-endowed the Patterson Institute is, it

will also have some difficulty getting them."

Wake-up Call

Some are skeptical as to whether Gray and

Nettles are biting off more than they can chew.

One director of a Black education association

wondered aloud how much the institute would

really add, or whether it would merely duplicate

the work of others.

"There are some tensions out there," says

N. Joyce Payne, director of the Office for the

Advancement of Public Black Colleges. "Some

people are raising questions about usurping

authority, but hopefully there will be an

opportunity to engage the larger community in

this. There's some structural and relationship

issues that need to be talked about as they build

that enterprise."

Gray is careful not to use the word "control"

as he stresses the need for Black research based

in the Black community. But he and others

point to the barrage of controversial research of

Black life that has become part of the American

mainstream as a wake-up call for Black

researchers.

"There have been a lot of people studying

us, and talking about us, but it is important that

African-American people look at themselves,

have available the data and information, and be

involved in the interpretation of that data and

information," says Gray. "Otherwise, it will

always be somebody studying the community

and bringing their biases to that study."

By taking charge of their own research,

which African-American scholars have done

more ferociously over the past three decades,

they are laying waste to long-held notions from

those outside the community that Blacks are

too close to their subject -- their own

community -- to provide adequate or unbiased

data.

"I see people saying that Black folk

shouldn't be doing that, but every other group

does it," argues Gray.

"UNCF can concentrate on Black

experiences in education. They don't have to

apologize for that. it's their business," Wilson

agrees. "As a consequence, they can say Blacks

are progressing because of this and they are

being held back because of this -- and they are

not being held back in the same way that

Hispanics are being held back because this and

this and this happened historically."

`About Identity'

For some, the idea of an identifiable Black

research clearinghouse carries a more spiritual

importance -- Black people defining Black

people.

"If you count the emphasis that we have

placed on action and intervention and compare

that to the emphasis we have placed on research

you will find that the scales tilt in favor of

action," Nettles argues.

"It's about identity. That's all it has ever

been. If you go back and look at the slave

petitions to colonial legislatures, you will see

the same questions -- questions about identity,

and action components," the University of

Colorado's King offers. "in other words, how

do I act? We allowed ourselves to

be reinvented in someone else's

image of us. We didn't spend a lot

time addressing questions of

identity, self-knowledge,

self-consciousness, self-awareness."

Payne views the institute as

symbolic not only of a logical

progression in Black research, but

as long overdue.

"We have enough Michael Nettleses out

there to make a difference," she says. "It's

obviously more important that you have people

who are fair, who believe in truth and justice and

all of that -- and in an ideal world, we would

have those people carry out the research agenda.

But that has not been the case, so it is important

that African Americans play a major role in

determining what the priorities are,"

Payne adds, "I thought we had already

defined who we are as a people. If you look at

the radical change in the amount of research

documents and literature Black scholars and

writers have produced, we have been pretty

prolific. We have been much more assertive

about defining who

we are as a community.

"I don't think that in 1996 it would be

politically imaginable to accept the notion that

we have not defined who we are -- especially in

the academy. I'm not sure if we have used that

information as strategically as we need to in

order to fight back against the powerful forces

of conservatism. We need to get on a collision

course with some of that and take on the Newt

Gingriches of the world."

"There is always the problem of

transcending our submergence in a white world,"

says Tollett. "We all have to overcome the

effect of being educated in a white society, at a

predominately white college -- lest we see things

essentially the same way white people see

things."

Says Wilson, "They may not come up with

anything new, but they can come up with a

broad speculation about Blacks in education that

others are not getting at this time."

COPYRIGHT 1996 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group