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| The Legacy of Theodore Cross’ The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education On Christmas Eve in 1992, I remember working into the early evening on contracts which sold off a series of professional publications in the banking field that Ted Cross owned and I had worked on over the previous decade. After closing the sale on New Year’s Eve, I came to work after the holiday wondering what our next project would be. Years earlier, Ted had inquired about what my father was doing after his retirement as an insurance company executive. I told him my father spent several days a week visiting local jails and prisons to help inmates who would soon be reentering society. Ted said simply, “Now he is doing his most important work.” In January 1993, Ted began formulating plans for The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. At the time he was closing in on his 70th birthday. I realized then that, as he had remarked about my father, Ted thought he was now embarking on what he considered would be the most important work of his remarkable life. That September the first issue of JBHE was published. Since that time JBHE has published almost 10,000 pages of statistics, commentary, historical accounts, critical essays, and news on the status and progress of African Americans in higher education. Over the past 17 years, Ted Cross personally went over each and every one of those 10,000 pages before publication. Ted wrote many articles, reviews, and essays. And his skilled editing improved the written words of countless others. But even more important, perhaps, was his vision and the fountain of ideas he produced for investigative analysis that produced some of the most important work of JBHE. Over the past 17 years, Ted Cross’ Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has accomplished a great deal. At least, partly due to our efforts, JBHE has instilled a competitive mindset at most of the top colleges and universities to foster greater racial diversity in their student bodies and faculties. As JBHE reported the critical data, universities diligently sought to improve their numbers so they would move up in the rankings. Those educational institutions that finished at the top of a given JBHE ranking widely publicized their success, spurring their peers to do more so they too could showcase their commitment to diversity. Those colleges and universities that performed poorly often were subjected to criticism by student newspaper editors or leaders of black student groups on their campuses. When work on JBHE began, some of the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities did not seem to care much about issues of racial diversity. But through JBHE, Ted Cross pressured those institutions to do a better job. Here’s just one example. In the Autumn 2001 issue, a JBHE survey of leading business schools revealed that not one of the 57 faculty members at the Yale School of Management was black. The next week the dean of the school sent a memorandum to all students, faculty, staff, and alumni confirming that the JBHE report was accurate. In this correspondence, the then-dean of the business school wrote, “About all I can say is that we have no excuse. This is an unacceptable situation for a great American institution like ours, and it is a sad commentary on our policies and efforts. As dean, I myself am to blame since I have obviously not set minority recruitment as a high enough priority, nor given it the attention it deserves.” He went on to list steps he was prepared to take to improve the racial diversity of both the faculty and student body. He concluded, “As a community we can and must broaden the composition of who we are. I deeply regret that we are in this situation and pledge total efforts to reverse it.” The Yale School of Management now has a standing task force on diversity issues, has developed a detailed diversity strategy, has increased efforts on a number of fronts to increase the racial diversity of its student body, and has hired several blacks to its faculty. Today, almost, if not all, the leading colleges, universities, and graduate schools have signed on to our agenda of making a concerted effort to increase black opportunities in higher education. Our most recent data shows that on a percentage basis, black enrollments at almost all of the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities have increased since the inaugural issue of JBHE. Likewise, black student graduation rates at most of these schools have improved, in some cases dramatically. Black faculty levels, albeit still at very low levels, have shown improvement. For many years, Ted Cross and JBHE placed a huge emphasis on creating more opportunities for low-income students of all races. This appears to have helped foster a movement where more and more schools are increasing financial aid to those who can least afford it. Clearly, too, our many reports about outstanding young black men and women in college and the successes of black scientists and scholars have served to contradict widely held racist stereotypes about the intellectual incompetence of black people. These stories, and the press coverage they have received outside our pages, have undoubtedly affected the nation’s collective mindset. JBHE first profiled Barack Obama in the year 2000, when he was a largely unknown senior lecturer at the law school of the University of Chicago. In early 2007, Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by a large margin in polls of black voters. But Ted Cross’ 2007 article in JBHE, “Barack Obama Is the Superior Choice for African-American Voters,” received widespread press coverage and played a significant role in moving black voter support to the Obama campaign. Ted Cross’ strongest writings were refutations of views that he believed caused great harm to African Americans. Over the years he penned well-researched treatises proving that blacks were not responsible for grade inflation as some scholars had charged, that affirmative action at high-ranked colleges and universities did not produce high black student graduation rates, and that blacks were incapable of competing with whites in the natural sciences and mathematics. In October 2001, then Harvard President Lawrence Summers criticized the quality of the scholarship of Cornel West, one of 17 University Professors at Harvard at that time. It was Ted Cross, writing in the Spring 2002 issue of JBHE, who showed Summers’ view to be false by presenting evidence that Professor West was one of the most highly cited scholars in America, black or white. In fact, Professor West ranked fourth in academic citations among Harvard’s 17 University Professors. One issue dear to the heart of Ted Cross was affirmative action and race-sensitive admissions in higher education. Over the years, the journal reported statistics that supported the positions of both sides on this controversial issue. In the mid-1990s, we reported the huge admissions advantages given to black applicants at the University of Michigan. Ted Cross supported the efforts of the university to expand opportunities for black applicants. But others believed that whites were being placed at an unfair advantage. Carl Cohen, professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, was an avid reader and contributor to JBHE. The admissions data he read in this journal prompted him to begin a crusade to end what he believed was reverse discrimination at the University of Michigan. This culminated in the Gratz and Grutter cases which were eventually decided by the Supreme Court in June 2003. I remember remarking to Ted before the decision was handed down that it would be ironic if information published by JBHE prompted the legal battle that ended forever affirmative action in higher education. He said, yes, it would be ironic, but he was certain that it would not happen. Ted always held firm in his belief that Sandra Day O’Connor would join the liberal wing of the Court and uphold the premise of affirmative action in higher education admissions. He was right. So instead of JBHE data being used to instigate litigation that ended affirmative action, the result was an affirmation of the consideration of race in admissions decisions at colleges and graduate schools across the United States. Ted Cross founded his journal in the hope that it would increase the educational and, therefore, the life opportunities of African Americans. There can be no doubt that his mission was successful. Because of JBHE, the outlook for many thousands of college-bound black students has improved. This, in turn, produces a major benefit to American society as a whole. This will be the last print issue of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The publication would just not be the same without the contributions of Ted Cross. But we hope to further his mission with the continuation of the e-mail newsletter, The JBHE Weekly Bulletin, and also with postings online at JBHE.com. — Robert Bruce Slater |
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