ABSTRACT
Although most people view college life in idealized and stereotypical terms, the history of the American college is rancorous and substantially political. Through the end of the nineteenth century, class and religious conflict, as well as conflicts between students and faculty, were commonplace. The admission of African American students in the predominately white colleges of the nation was the consequence of the 1950s civil rights movement and court decisions that mandated school desegregation. A rapid shift in the ethnic composition of a population is almost invariably accompanied by increased group conflict. In 1987, 42 campuses had ethnoviolent incidents that drew substantial media attention. Ethnoviolence consists of acts motivated by prejudice. Researchers and policy makers keep falling into numerous methodological sinkholes when devising questionnaires for ethnoviolence research. The most common forms of ethnoviolence are acts of verbal aggression. This is true of incidents occurring in the community and in workplace settings as well as on college campuses.
