St. Augustine, Florida is the place that made world history in 1964, with mean racists beating hell out of Andrew Young (twice), helping Lyndon Johnson break the Senate filibuster, leading to the enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Our Civil RIghts Foot Soldiers in St. Augustine, joined by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and hundreds of others, made it happen. Right here.
Racism remains a fact of life in our governmental institutions and private organizations, even including a college founded by the illegitimate sons of HENRY MORRISON FLAGLER, convicted monopolist and antitrust violator behind Standard Oil.
Currently under investigation for possible discrimination by the U.S. Department of Education, FLAGLER COLLEGE recently fessed up to just how lily-white it is -- the right-wing college in the middle of our beautiful City of St. Augustine turns out to be whiter than Ivory Soap.
Whiter than Velveeta.
Whiter than Wonder Bread.
Here are the statistics, straight from a December 4, 2008 letter from DoEd in my mail box:
Of 2447 students in St. Augustine and Tallahassee for the 2008-2009 school year, there are 57 African-Americans. That's 2.1%, or less than even Bob Jones University, which went to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight for its right to receive tax breaks while banning interacial dating.
Of 27,334 inquiries from prospective students, 2445 were from African-Americans, or 8.95%. Of that large number, only 92 applied (3%). Did Flagler's white-bread and non-diverse college catalog discourages African-Americans from applying?
Of that number (92), 35 wsre accepted (38%). Of that number, 23 enrolled (65%).
Now let's look at the FLAGLER COLLEGE faculty. No one has tenure. Ideational fluency is not encouraged at this illiberal college.
For the 2008-2009 academic year, Flagler has 91 full-time faculty, of whom 2 are African-American.(2%). There are 103 part-time faculty members, of whom 3 are African-American. (2.9%). DoEd says there are also "others," but they are not identified and further data is being requested (by me, one of the complainants).
Comparable numbers for my undergraduate alma mater, Georgetown University -- Asian American, 11 percent; African American, 7 percent; Hispanic, 5 percent; and Native American, less than 1 percent. Of course, Georgetown has a faculty union, tenure, and a 219-year tradition of respecting diversity, with students from around the world, unstunted by anti-literate educational energumen administrator-slavemasters like CHANCELLOR/REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM L. PROCTOR.
Look at the FLAGLER COLLEGE Board of Trustees -- is there one African-American?
Look at the FLAGLER COLLEGE founders -- illegitimate heirs of monopolist Henry Flagler, including the late Lawrence Lewis, as racist and recondite a crew as ever drank soup without a spoon.
Flagler College was founded as a haven for the Flagler heirs' money, to avoid taxes on their Ponce de Leon Hotel, and as a way of 1960s' right-wing kooks to educate their children without subjecting them to reality (anti-war professors, liberal ideas, freedom of speech, desegregation). At its inception, FLAGLER COLLEGE discouraged interracial dating, just like Bob Jones University, which has since apologized for its racist policies. (See above).
Flagler students say they see few dark-skinned African-American students -- most are from the Caribbean. Flagler students long joked that the basketball team was the only place where one would find more than three African-American students at a time.
It is little wonder that the meanest man in St. Augustine -- WILLIAM L. PROCTOR -- stands atop this white-bread colossus, where faculty members have no union, no tenure and no respect from MASSA PROCTOR.
Ex-coach WILLIAM L. PROCTOR is FLAGLER COLLEGE Chancellor and 20th District Representative, and Republican Lord of All He Surveys, but as Bob Dylan says, "the times they are a-changin'!"
Long-tailed weasel, is he one of WILLIAM L. PROCTOR's ancestors? Notice the resemblance?
CHANCELLOR/REPRESENTATIVE/SCROOGE WILLIAM L. PROCTOR bitterly defends FLAGLER COLLEGE's deadbeat-dad relationship to our City of St. Augustine -- FLAGLER COLLEGE has property worth over $120 million but pays no payments in lieu of taxes (unlike Harvard, Yale and other academic institutions run by real mensches who are part of their communities). FLAGLER COLLEGE does pay some $121,000/year for two police officers, whom WILLIAM L. PROCTOR once asked to arrest David Thundershield Queen for picketing fascist PAT BUCHANNAN (on a public sidewalk in front of the auditorium).
So, they're having a white Christmas at Flagler College, except that our next President, Barack Obama, has appointed a Secretary of Education of honor and integrity, and I'm planning to pursue the inquiry against Flagler College to where DoEd actually investigates, instead of equivocates.
The DoEd OCR complaint number is 04-08-2149. The baby-talking bureaucrat who recently wrote to say DoEd could find no "facts" involving discrimination has afforded us 60 days within which to request reconsideration. We shall. And we shall overcome.
The notion that a government-subsidized "college" without diversity can exist in our midst so subsidized is obnoxious in this time of economic bubble-bursting. FLAGLER COLLEGE msut be desegregated, if it takes the 82nd Airbonre to do so.
What do you reckon?
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