YaleCoursesCollege and Citizenship - Purposes of College Education, Lecture 12
YaleCourses
Character and inclusion 0:00
The lecture moves from earlier questions about who gets to join a community to racial discrimination, especially against African Americans at Yale. Martin Luther King Jr. is used as a key example of the claim that education should judge people by character, not skin color or gender. King’s line, “intelligence plus character,” is set up as a direct answer to admissions practices that used character as code for exclusion.
Black students at Yale 4:33
Yale’s Black history is traced from slavery in Connecticut, the blocked 1831 plan for a Black college in New Haven, and the small number of Black students in the 19th century. Edward Bouchet, class of 1874, is highlighted as the first documented Black Yale College graduate and the first Black Ph.D. in the United States. Richard Henry Greene is added as an earlier mixed-race graduate, and the enrollment of Black students rises sharply in the 1960s through cooperative admissions efforts.
Educational access and support 17:00
Yale’s push to enroll more first-generation, low-income students grew from changes in the 1960s, including need-blind admission and the first Black admissions officer. The newer Office of Educational Opportunity was created to close the gap between access and graduation. It tries to teach the hidden curriculum and coordinate help that had been scattered across programs, so students who arrive needing support can finish at the same high rate as everyone else.
Affirmative action and Levi Jackson 24:01
The talk then turns to affirmative action. Bakke allowed race as one factor but banned quotas, so schools moved toward holistic admissions. Later cases shifted the justification to diversity, not repair of past discrimination, and in 2023 most affirmative action was ruled unconstitutional. Levi Jackson fits the earlier story: a Black Yale football star, first Black team captain, and a public school graduate welcomed despite feeling out of place at first.
Schmoke and early change 33:04
Kurt Schmoke stands out as a Black Yale leader who came through a special Baltimore program, studied Latin, led the Black Students Alliance, went on to become a Rhodes Scholar, a Harvard Law graduate, and the first Black mayor of Baltimore. His path is set beside Calvin Hill and the larger sign of change at Yale. The speaker links that progress to Dr. King’s line about justice.
Women and coeducation 35:03
Women were admitted more suddenly than other groups. Yale had women in art and graduate work, but undergraduates resisted coeducation, and the 1962 Doob report still only recommended it for the future. After failed ideas for a sister college and coordinate colleges, Princeton’s move in 1968 pushed Yale to act. The first women entered in 1969, and the new ratio made admissions harder for women.
Women and leadership 48:32
Elga Wasserman pushed Yale to use the same admission and aid standards for women and men. The change was slow. Women were only a third of the class in 1973 and did not reach half until 1995. Yale later named its first female president and first African-American dean, but only after many years.
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