Notes from the Back of the Academic Bus

Abstract

Racial/ethnic groups who are far more absent than present on college and university faculties face a variety of complex circumstances while entering careers as professors. I find it useful to construct a typology of departments based upon their record of inclusion and exclusion of black scholars. Borrowing from the notion of “sundown towns”—towns where no blacks were allowed to be present after sunset—I label faculties that have never had a black colleague as sundown departments. Faculties that have had at least one black faculty member in the past but have none at present can be called midnight departments. Finally, those faculties with a single black colleague are window dressing departments. It is straightforward to apply the typology to economics departments, the field among the social sciences that has proven to be the most resistant to altering their demography to include black scholars.

William A. (“Sandy”) Darity, Jr. is Arts and Sciences Professor of Public Policy Studies and Professor of African and African American Studies and Economics at Duke University. He previously served as Director of the Institute of African American Research, the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, the Undergraduate Honors Program in economics, and Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina. He is a past president of the National Economic Association and the Southern Economic Association. He has also taught at Grinnell College, the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Texas at Austin, Simmons College, and Claremont-McKenna College.