# Racial segregation at universities--a growing, and legitimate trend?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-segregation-at-universities-a-growing-and-legitimate-trend/951334>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 25, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-segregation-at-universities-a-growing-and-legitimate-trend/951334 "2021-09-25T19:03:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-segregation-at-universities-a-growing-and-legitimate-trend/951334/5 "2021-09-25T21:30:18Z")

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> [@chappachula](#):
>
> And he offers some shocking statistics about universities which provide racially segregated residences, and segregated graduation ceremonies.

OMG, not this nonsense again. No, as GreysonCarlisle’s link makes clear, black undergraduates are not trying to hold “segregated graduation ceremonies”.

> [@](#):
>
> “…the ceremony is “not about segregation,” said Michael Huggins, president of the Harvard Black Graduate Student Alliance, which is organizing the event. Students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds may attend, he said, and the black students taking part in the ceremony also plan to attend the university’s official commencement on May 25 in Harvard Yard"

This, and AFAICT all the similar events that conservative media have squawked about as “segregated graduation ceremonies”, is an ADDITIONAL VOLUNTARY celebration event to acknowledge Black graduates. It is in no way a substitute for the institution’s official Commencement exercises where all graduating students, of all races, actually receive their degrees.

Graduating college students frequently have additional graduation celebrations for graduating members of particular fraternities/sororities, or athletes on particular varsity teams, or underrepresented groups such as women in engineering, or first-generation college students, and so on and so forth.

There is nothing wrong, or in any way new, about different communities within the larger campus community having their own celebratory events in addition to campus-wide events. The only reason conservative media are bleating about “racial segregation” in this context is to dishonestly promote popular distrust and disdain of academia.

(ETA: I thought [we had figured this out back in March.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cultural-grievance-is-not-a-governing-agenda/937288/33))

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