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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,904 posts)
Thu May 16, 2013, 09:30 AM May 2013

Columbia Scholarship Scandal Shows How White People Are Still Helped By Institutional Racism

Columbia Scholarship Scandal Shows How White People Are Still Helped By Institutional Racism

By Elie Mystal

In 1920, Lydia C. Chamberlain, a woman from Des Moines who moved to Manhattan, donated her $500,000 estate to create a fellowship at Columbia University. The fellowship had a few restrictions. Notably, recipients were not allowed to study “law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary surgery or theology.” Ha. Seems reasonable. Oh, and the recipients had to be from Iowa and had to move back to Iowa after completing their studies.

This kind of dead-hand control should really not be allowed in our modern, global society, but that’s not why the “Lydia C. Roberts graduate and traveling fellowships” is making news today. It’s making news because the other restriction is that recipients of the fellowship have to be white. “Of the Caucasian race” is the exact formulation.
....

“I didn’t even know there were requirements of race,” said Douglass Gross, a Des Moines attorney who was awarded the fellowship in 1976 to study at the university’s School of International Affairs.
....


MEANWHILE… Attorney Douglass Gross of Des Moines Iowa got free tuition and doesn’t even know why. Douglass Gross — the Iowa CHAIRMAN of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign — got free tuition on a racist scholarship, yet has the luxury of never having to question how he got a leg up in this race. “All I knew is that you had to be from Iowa.” I’d bet ALL THE MONEY IN MY POCKET that at some point this guy has derisively referred to “takers” and doesn’t considered himself to have gotten “handouts” based on his race. Institutional racism isn’t some guy in a hood burning crap on your lawn. It’s guys like this who will look at you with a straight face and say “I’ve worked for every penny I’ve gotten,” oblivious to the fact that all the levers are pulled in their direction.




Some of his best friends were ‘takers.’
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Columbia Scholarship Scandal Shows How White People Are Still Helped By Institutional Racism (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves May 2013 OP
We're dredging up restrictions on a scholarship created in the 1920s to find a scandal? Buzz Clik May 2013 #1
Created in 1920 but still enforced in 2013 . . . I'd say a good example of institutional racism brush May 2013 #2
Exactly! n/t marew May 2013 #3
No, I don't see it, but I can see that you want to see it. Buzz Clik May 2013 #4
white somebodys only. ret5hd May 2013 #5
If you say do. Buzz Clik May 2013 #6
Who said anything about stopping giving the scholarship? brush May 2013 #8
Surely they can contact her estate BainsBane May 2013 #10
yup... Set the precedent so whistler162 May 2013 #7
Most already have been BainsBane May 2013 #11
I would think now, and likely anytime after 1964, this would be against public policy dsc May 2013 #9

brush

(53,475 posts)
2. Created in 1920 but still enforced in 2013 . . . I'd say a good example of institutional racism
Thu May 16, 2013, 09:44 AM
May 2013

And you don't see that?

 

Buzz Clik

(38,437 posts)
4. No, I don't see it, but I can see that you want to see it.
Thu May 16, 2013, 09:53 AM
May 2013

Look at it this way: if Columbia stops giving that scholarship, that's money out of the system, and somebody will not be getting scholarship money. Somebody who needs its.

brush

(53,475 posts)
8. Who said anything about stopping giving the scholarship?
Thu May 16, 2013, 01:39 PM
May 2013

That's why they are trying to get the racist restriction changed so they can still give the scholarship. It's not rocket science.

 

whistler162

(11,155 posts)
7. yup... Set the precedent so
Thu May 16, 2013, 10:44 AM
May 2013

The African American, Asian, female, or Native American only scholarships/fellowships can be opened up to all!

dsc

(52,130 posts)
9. I would think now, and likely anytime after 1964, this would be against public policy
Thu May 16, 2013, 09:42 PM
May 2013

and thus not enforceable. Literally millions of property deeds have restrictive covenants. No sale or rental to various groups (often Jews, non Whites, and others). Those are not enforceable.

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