ABSTRACT
The University as an institution is a key arena where “legitimate” knowledge is established. In the Afrikaans language, “apartheid” has been most commonly used to refer to the historical, rigid racial division between the governing white population and the non-white majority population in South Africa. Between 1972 and 1989, faculty of color improved our representation within the rank of professor by less than 4 percent. Faculty of color have a high concentration in the humanities, social sciences, and education for reasons related to opportunity structures and to personal choice. Higher education in the United States is founded on a Eurocentric epistemological perspective based on white privilege and “American democratic” ideals of meritocracy, objectivity, and individuality. The apartheid of knowledge in the academy is sustained by the de facto racial segregation that exists in higher education institutions, across academic ranks, and within departments.
