ABSTRACT
In a single week in fall 2017, a rash of racist incidents broke out on college campuses—at Drake University, Duke University, Purdue University, Southern Illinois University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Louisville, among others. Racist joking and other comments often seemed a bonding ritual linking the whites there together. Some members of white Greek and other campus organizations have also engaged in racialized violence. One major consequence of the so-called “browning of America” is continuing political debate, reconfiguration, and turmoil. Take just three other important incidents as further examples of the normalization of racist speech and behavior. Some conservative white state legislators have revealed their racist framing by openly admitting that the large-scale higher education defunding is linked to the growing numbers of students of color seeking good educations. The naive Court assumption is that historically white colleges and universities are generally color-blind in their everyday operations, and only sullied occasionally by a few racist white individuals.
