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A Historic Perspective on the Experiences of Women and African Americans at Carolina When
Carolina opened its doors in 1795, its primary purpose was to provide
undergraduate training for North Carolina’s youth — who were
defined at the time as young, white male citizens of North Carolina. Even
after the University broadened its curriculum in the 1850s to include
post-graduate work, its student body continued to be limited to this privileged
group. Only after many years and much debate would other students, such
as women and African Americans, gain admittance to Carolina. During the 19th century, general
interest in women’s higher education increased rapidly as women’s
colleges and co-educational facilities sprang up across the country. Carolina,
however, was not quick to open its doors to women. Although administrators
occasionally allowed faculty daughters to sit in on lectures, neither
academic credits nor degrees accompanied participation. This meant that
even though a handful of women were able to attend classes, they were
not actually enrolled at the University and therefore, set no legal precedent
for admitting other women on either the graduate or undergraduate level. While this situation was common
throughout the South, it did not necessarily mean that North Carolina
educators were wholly opposed to educating women. In the years following
the Civil War, a tremendous need for teachers arose as the state instituted
its first mandatory public school system. However, most educators believed
the solution lay not in admitting women to Carolina but rather, in creating
a separate women’s college. As historian Amy Thompson McCandless
explains, “Accustomed to single-gender institutions for white men,
Southern educators preferred to establish separate schools for white women,
just as they later would for African Americans, rather than admitting
them to existing colleges or universities.” In line with this new, separate-schools
trend, the Normal and Industrial School at Greensboro opened its doors
in 1891. Although this women’s school clearly provided professional
training, it lacked the funds and faculty essential for upper level and
graduate study. Consequently, as the century came to a close, the demand
for advanced educational opportunities for women mounted in North Carolina
and across the country. Throughout the 1890s, public attention increasingly
turned to the admittance of women to all-male universities and graduate
schools. Moreover, in the midst of this national debate, a major turning
point occurred when six of the nation’s foremost universities —
Yale, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, and the University of Chicago
— decided to admit women to their graduate programs. Undoubtedly influenced by these
developments in higher education, Carolina President Edwin A. Alderman
(1896-1900) announced in January of 1897, “One whose mind is upon
educational questions cannotlonger hesitate to deal frankly with the duty
of educa-tional institutions to womanhood. I believe that this University
at the earliest time practicable should open its post-graduate courses
to the women of the state.” The following month, in accordance with
Alderman’s recommendations, the trustees decided to admit women to
post-graduate courses. By broadly defining the term
“post-graduate,” Alderman was able to justify the inclusion
of women who had graduated from two-year schools who desired to complete
their junior and senior years, as well as women who had already earned
their Bachelor’s degrees and sought graduate training. As a result,
a handful of women gained admittance to Carolina that year. Shortly thereafter,
in 1898, Sallie Stockard became the first Carolina woman to receive her
Bachelor’s degree, and the following year, two Smith College graduates,
Katherine Ahern and Mary Pearson Kendrick earned the first Master of Arts
degrees granted to women. Twenty-five years later, in 1924, Irene Dillard
and Anna Forbes Liddell received the first Ph.D.s awarded to women at
Carolina. But when University administrators
finally admitted women to Carolina, they accepted only a select group
of women. African-American women — as well as African-American men
— would have to wait more than 50 years before gaining admittance.
Ironically, at approximately the same time white women at Carolina finally
began to make inroads, African Americans experienced an enormous setback:
in 1896 the United States Supreme Court announced its ruling in the landmark
Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which upheld the Over the course of several
decades, it slowly became apparent that “separate but equal”
facilities could not be offered in all areas of study, particularly when
separate facilities simply did not exist: the medical school at Carolina,
for example, was the only public one in the Shortly thereafter, in its
1954 Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education decision, the United States Supreme
Court essentially reversed the Plessy decision, ruling against the constitutionality
of the “separate but equal” doctrine and, in effect, formally
ending segregation in education. The first African-American graduate student
at Carolina enrolled in the fall of 1955 and by 1960, 11 African Americans
had received Master’s degrees; four years later, in 1964, William
Darity became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Carolina. Since the Brown decision, efforts
by University leaders and faculty to open access to all people have resulted
in remarkable success, given its historical legacy. Many Graduate School
deans, among others, have played important roles in recruiting an inclusive
and diverse graduate student body. Currently, 25 percent of Carolina’s
graduate and professional students represent minority groups, and approximately
59 percent of Carolina’s graduate and professional students are women. Although Carolina’s road
to inclusion has been sinuous, today’s Graduate School at Carolina
is dedicated to ensuring an inclusive and diverse graduate student population.
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