Tyranny - Tyrant: In modern usage, a tyrant carries modern connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his or her own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which the tyrant governs or controls. [1]
The problem of rampant racism in higher education is a very perplexing moral problem to come to terms with. How can those who are deemed the most intelligent, well educated, skilled academics, in this day and age, still rely on tests, measures and means to admit their incoming classes which fly in the face of logic and justification to the continued detriment of societies racial minorities and historically marginalized and excluded populations?
When we look at the famous example of Nazi Germany, I believe there is something to be said for the argument that it is human nature itself which is to blame for rampant racism in our higher education system.
racism and exclusion in higher education, at it's core, is largely explainable by what has been identified as "a fundamental attribution error". that is, in excluding minorities and historically under-resourced, under-supported, historically oppressed populations from higher education in this day and age is a self-fulfilling prophecy constructed upon creating a system that attributes the cause of racism admissions to the disposition of the individual and their "out group" rather than historical circumstance and the "qualities" judged by the universities.
why was the Holocaust perpetrated against Jews, gypsies, the mentally defective and the like? the same reason Blacks can't get into college (once they have somehow found a good school, have performed well and have prepared themselves for college) the foundations reason is the ultimate attribution error. So what we are left with in higher education selection procedures is the accentuation of difference the systematic ignoring of similarity and more highly correlatable information to determine a students potentiality in order to find an element of seeming validity to justify a set of attitudes and behaviors which are integrated into and then self-fulfilled by admissions policy
Stanley Milgram conducted a famous experiment in 1961 to answer a question about compliance. Milgram, a Yale university researcher conducted his experiment in response to the war crimes trial of Adolph Eichmann. far too frequently, Nazi leaders repeatedly came before the war crimes tribunal an stated as their defense for atrocities that they were only "following orders"
Milgrams experiment required that students that were recruited to participate in a study presumably on "learning". other students (who were in on the experiment) were "learners" and the well known effects of punishment on learning proved in animal experiments were to be replicated in this experiment.
electrical shocks were given to the "learners" by the students as directed by the lead experimenter. the amount of the electric shock varied from a small shock to a shock level labeled "danger: high voltage", as increasing shocks were administered, the person receiving the shocks called out at first in a low tone to express pain to anguished, progressing to pained and tortured vocalizations and finally culminating to a macabre silence for the highest shock level.
The results of the study were that 1/3rd of those recruited refused to administer the shocks, while a full 2/3rd complied and delivered the maximum shock level.
No one thought that the experiment would turn out. Milgram talked to other professors, graduate students and no one believed that individuals would shock other humans as part of an "experiment". As it turned out, about 1/3rd of the test subjects pulled out of the study and refused to administer high level shocks. the rest went all the way to the max. through the screams of agony and even to silence.
The participants could have stopped at any time. If they said anything like, "I think I'm hurting this person" or they expressed that they were not certain they should do it, they were to be told by the researcher, "You agreed to conduct the study, will you please continue", if they contested again, they were to be told a bit more sternly, "you said you'd finish this, we need the data set, please continue until the study is concluded."
The interesting part to me is that these folks entire reinforcement history militated against entering into a laboratory situation where in order to learn you begin electrocuting your neighbors. These were Yale students, highly educated, privileged, and yet, they participated in torture merely to participate in a "study".
What does this say? It seems that the context determines the outcome. People are obedient in settings which summon obedient behavior. A university with lab coats and assumed intelligent people carry a certain authority which elucidates obedience.
Could this in part be the reason that nearly 50 years after the civil rights movement, major universities, especially the most "prestigious" universities still justify the exclusion of racial and economic minorities? could this be a major factor the reason they cling to measures of worth which have a demonstrated non-utility in determining academic, social, or vocational success? could the appearance of righteousness, rightness, authority, be what continues to sustain a this system of institutionalized racism under the guise of "correctness"? Could this flaw or loophole in human character in part explain how the horrible destructive and multi-generational effects of exclusion upon income, access, health care and also crime, poverty and violence be sustained despite the well-known and deleterious almost tortuous effects upon those who are excluded from such opportunities?
There are ethical implications as to how our entire society participates in disparity and oppression within our own borders to those both within and without. I do believe that this is a great nation and that we have an obligation to teach and raise our children to be respectful of authority, yet we must also teach them and set an example for them in such a way that they understand that at times the demands of authority must be resisted. We must retain in our children and instill in them a certain moral authority as well as the moral resources to say, 'no, i won't do it' when facing seeming "authority". Even if that authority is academic and stands on the hallowed ground and defense that they are acting in the best interest of society and with the full backing of "the best things thought and said by the human race."
the question is for each individual in our society, "what principles should guide my conduct, regardless of who I face, what uniform they have on, what uniform I put on and what I am told to do?" If one does not have clarity on that account, then they will always be a hostage to the context and doomed to a condition of being constantly in the thrall of circumstance instead of in the position of being masters of our own fate with a moral code of conduct which can weigh and react to all circumstances of discrimination and moral questionability with confidence and preparation for the dubious claims and seeming authoritative/justified actions of those who are entrusted with the power to meet out various forms of overt and disguised justice.
Because of the failure of a solid moral grounds and moral resistance to tyranny in higher education, we are suffering a dire, grave and life risking cost as lives of poverty, disadvantage, violence and multi-generational oppression is forced upon an entire race and economic class of individuals.
and so we are left with Stanley Milgram's experiment and the somber conclusion that is inescapable.
"Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."[2]
[1] "Tyrant" From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[2] Milgram, Stanley. (1974), "The Perils of Obedience". Harper's Magazine. Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority.
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