By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

President Neil L. Rudenstine was honored by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on Oct. 22 for affirming the importance of student diversity in higher education. The award presentation took place at a dinner at the Fogg Museum.

Rudenstine spoke at the event following an introduction by Deval Patrick '79, JD '82, lecturer on law at the Law School and former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights.

"It's a tough, tough time," Rudenstine said, commenting on legislative and judicial developments across the country. "I have to admit that as I watch what's been happening, I am concerned that the consequences will be deep, terrible, and long-lasting if these tendencies prevail."

Rudenstine spoke of diversity as a crucial part of the educational process, because of the powerful learning that takes place when people of different cultures, religions, races, and ethnic groups come together in a university community.

"Education includes what you learn outside the classroom, talking to people. It's what you learn in the residential community, what you learn in the dining rooms and the residence halls, and on the athletic fields. It includes learning how to live with other people, which is probably the hardest, most difficult thing human beings can do," Rudenstine said.

Rudenstine called attention to the relatively short span of years that African Americans and other minorities have had access to higher education.

"It has been 30 years, basically, since many minority students -- African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and others -- have had serious access to most American institutions of higher education -- 30 years, after 300 years of non-access. And 30 years is supposed to be enough for minorities to catch up and achieve full equality of opportunity? That's what we are being asked to believe."

Rudenstine pointed to his own immigrant family to underscore this point, remarking that after nearly 100 years in this country, fewer than half the children of the current generation have gone to college.

"It has taken that long for the family to build up enough educational capital," he said.

Rudenstine predicted that if American higher education is resegregated, the consequences will be grave.

"Where will we be 30 years from now? If we go back where we were 30 years ago, it is going to be harder, the protests will be louder, and the difficulties will be tougher for the whole society. Diversity cannot be stopped, and there is simply no going back on it."

Rudenstine added that as a former scholarship student, he considers himself a beneficiary of conscious efforts to promote inclusiveness in higher education.

"I stand humbly before you as one of the educated, thanks to all the work you have done, and the power that you wield by your conscience, and your force, and your good works over the years. I know you will keep it up, and I want to pledge to you that the rest of us are going to keep it up, too."

Rudenstine received a standing ovation at the conclusion of his talk.

"Thoughtful and needed," said A. Leon Higginbotham, the Public Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the Kennedy School, of Rudenstine's remarks. "If Neil Rudenstine is listened to, America can be saved."