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University of Iowa Committee on Human Rights policies, 1958-1986

1968-11-15 University Human Rights Committee to President Howard Bowen Page 4

-4-

Society itself, since it set the forces in motion which created and now maintain the ghettos, the inferior opportunities, and atrophy of personal development and the racial divisions of our nation. Therefore, society and all its major institutions, certainly including the Universities, cannot stand aloof and accept present patterns as a given for which they have no responsibility and in relation to which they have no obligations. On the contrary, they have an affirmative duty to break the molds and alter the patterns they have created, and to do so by all appropriate means. In this task, Universities must play a prominent role since they not only have great power and prestige, but are in a unique position to help remove on of the principal impediments to equality -- inadequate education and training -- since it is only through education that society can hope to end the self-perpetuating cycles of poverty, segregation and despair. Furthermore, not only will increased educational opportunity materially assist the individual receiving it, but his achievement will serve as an example for others in the minority communities. and furnish proof that progress is possible within the existing system. 
   The University must make a special effort to reinforce the discriminatory effects of a multitude of forces operating in our society. Possibly there will be some future time when American society may be "color blind" in the simple-minded sense that we usually seem to imply when we use that term. But it is an unmistakable fact that that society s not "color blind" today, in whole or in any significant part. Quite the contrary. And, it is almost impossible, with the best of intentions, to avoid building or administering any institution in a way which reinforces rather than moderates the various effects of such color consciousness. At a minimum, though, until t he shackles of the past have been thoroughly

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-4- Society itself, since it set the forces in motion which created and now maintain the ghettos, the inferior opportunities, and atrophy of personal development and the racial divisions of our nation. Therefore, society and all its major institutions, certainly including the Universities, cannot stand aloof and accept present patterns as a given for which they have no responsibility and in relation to which they have no obligations. On the contrary, they have an affirmative duty to break the molds and alter the patterns they have created, and to do so by all appropriate means. In this task, Universities must play a prominent role since they not only have great power and prestige, but are in a unique position to help remove on of the principal impediments to equality -- inadequate education and training -- since it is only through education that society can hope to end the self-perpetuating cycles of poverty, segregation and despair. Furthermore, not only will increased educational opportunity materially assist the individual receiving it, but his achievement will serve as an example for others in the minority communities. and furnish proof that progress is possible within the existing system. The University must make a special effort to reinforce the discriminatory effects of a multitude of forces operating in our society. Possibly there will be some future time when American society may be "color blind" in the simple-minded sense that we usually seem to imply when we use that term. But it is an unmistakable fact that that society s not "color blind" today, in whole or in any significant part. Quite the contrary. And, it is almost impossible, with the best of intentions, to avoid building or administering any institution in a way which reinforces rather than moderates the various effects of such color consciousness. At a minimum, though, until t he shackles of the past have been thoroughly