EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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tion. You have black students congregating together, not just black, but
separated into Haitians, Nigerians, Cubans, and the this ones and the that
ones. They're all separate.
It
is a replay of interest-group politics to the
nth degree, and this makes for a great deal of non-civility, almost hatred
in some ways. As some of you know, I went to City College, and there
were clubs, all kinds of clubs. We primarily met for social reasons. The
psychology club was a social club, so was the club ofJewish students, and
the club of black students. We were not truly segregated. Now, when
you go
to
the lunch room, students are segregated. And that is disturb–
ing. If we want to think of all this in a larger sense, in the sense of civic
education, then we must somehow break it up. I don't know how.
Roger Kimball:
That's a very important issue. It's a separate Issue,
believe, but this sort of retribalization of society is disturbing.
Digby Baltzell:
But Edith, I observe no segregation or very little
among Asians and Koreans. I know a Korean, whose father ran a grocery
store in Harlem for thirty years, and her boyfriend's from one of the
wealthiest families in Philadelphia. In the past, the universities brought
kids together who had an intellectual commonality or at least an intel–
lectual ability to get along with one another. Why should we be culti–
vating a whole group of Chicanos from Southern California at Penn? I
think it's because of guilt.
William Phillips:
It's white guilt, which Arthur mentions frequently in
his book.
Edith Kurzweil:
It seems
to
me that people who have no reason to
feel guilty are getting guilty as they're being upwardly mobile.
Arthur Schlesinger:
I hope we don't get so involved in higher educa–
tion that we forget public schools. Public schools have been historically
the great agencies that create the sense of a common culture in this
society. They help convert newcomers into Americans. The heavy
production industries, which once absorbed semi-skilled labor, are now
off in Korea or elsewhere. So the public school's role is more critical
than ever.
It
is being held responsible for everything. It used to be in part
the role of the family, or the church, or the community to nurture the
young. I think that the problems arise in the universities because of
the failure of the public schools to educate students. Really, if we're go–
ing to be serious about this, we have to focus much more, it seems
to
me, on the public schools.
