Nonetheless, the loss of six Black professors is particularly painful given that the university recently finished an extremely successful, decade-long initiative to build up its Black faculty. From 1993 to 2003, the university doubled its Black faculty to 88 by offering financial incentives and generous research opportunities.
However, when the race initiative ended in 2003, it was replaced by a “diversity” initiative, says Holloway; and that was when Blacks “fell off the radar.”
Duke administrators disagree. They called the switch in language from race to diversity an “expansion.”
“I don’t like to make contrasts between race and diversity as if it’s a trade off. It’s an expansion,” Lange says. “We view diversity as important, and we need to capture that diversity, but not at the expense of African-American hiring.”
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