4.25 ( )

I found this a scattered narrative that does not really cohere. No doubt its central contention--that US higher education has ill-served Black Americans--is true. It is mostly a history of Black higher education told dramatic vignettes--the establishment of the first integrated college in Kentucky (Berea); the Morrill Acts that codified segregation in higher education; Plessy v Ferguson (emboldening states like Kentucky to prohibit integrated education); NAACP efforts to challenge state policies to pay black students to get post-baccalaureate education in another state rather than let them attend their own white colleges (Lloyd Gaines, Ada Sipuel; McLaurin); James Meredith's integrating University of Mississippi; Bakke; Ayers v Fordice.

I won't deny that I learned a lot here, and Harris has excavated importance NAACP cases that are not as well known as James Meredith. While Harris's introduction and conclusion focus on the plight of HBCUs (particularly those in the South), they recede from the narrative in the middle of the book as Harris's attention turns to Black attempts to gain access to White colleges. The book is disjointed, and I worry that Harris's attention to the dramatic episodes in history detract from really shedding light on the book's titular concern--inequality among colleges. He strangely comments on the weather at the time when a court decision came down or when legislation was passed. ( )