The First Years of Desegregation: Patterns of Acceptance of Black Students on a Deep-South Campus, 1963-69

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Abstract
Attitudes concerning the acceptance of black students on a Deep-South campus were measured by three surveys conducted during the first six years of desegregation. A strong and consistent trend toward increasing acceptance was analyzed using analysis of variance techniques, revealing that increasing liberality of incoming freshmen played a major role, but that even greater changes were associated with the student's academic year. Further analysis indicated that the latter changes were not, as traditionally held, of academic origin but, like the changes in enrolling freshmen, indicators of the pervasive influence of mass cultures and media. Academic tradition was also questioned by the finding that the observed relative liberalism of the Arts and Sciences students could be accounted for by differential recruitment, rather than the supposedly highly liberalizing effects of the curriculum. By implication, present attempts to limit cultural evolution through control of the mechanisms of formal education are ineffective anachronisms.

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