With the appointment of its first African American vice president,
the University of Texas tries to overcome its legacy of minority
exclusion
When James Hill graduated salutatorrian from a segregated Austin
high school in 1945, attending the University of Texas (UT) was not an
option. Back then, the university didn’t admit Black students.
The irony that he became the university’s first African American
vice president earlier this year is not lost on Dr. Hill. And the
appointment comes at a time when a court-imposed ban on affirmative
action programs in that state has sent the enrollment of African
Americans and Chicanos/Latinos plummeting.
“To not [have been] able to get admitted here [as an
undergraduate], but to now be an officer is quite an accomplishment for
me,” says Hill, a lifelong jazz fan whose new office displays paintings
of John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong on its walls. The vice president’s
chatty, grandfatherly manner attracts smiles from colleagues as well as
strangers.
Top UT officials insist Hill’s appointment wasn’t tokenism.
They say the forty-five-year veteran educator, who most recently
was an associate vice president at the university, was simply the best
qualified for the job.
“I would have recommended him if he had been White,” says Dr. Edwin
R. Sharpe, vice chancellor for academic affairs of the UT System.
