Liberal Arts College President Creates Furor After Calling Minority Students ‘Dark Ones’

Posted by | August 1, 2013 22:04 | Filed under: Top Stories


Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn used the term while talking before the Michigan legislature.

While discussing a letter the college recieved in 2000 from the Michigan Department of Education about its seeming lack of racial diversity, Arnn said, “They said we violated the standards for diversity because we didn’t have enough dark ones, I guess is what they meant.” When asked to clarify his statement, Arnn said that the state of Michigan had sent representatives to Hillsdale to mark down the color of people’s faces on clipboards, the Detroit Free Press reports.

A Michigan Department of Education spokesperson confirmed to the Free Press that no representatives had ever been sent to Hillsdale to identify students by race…

“I think this was Dr. Arnn’s way to indicate that he was offended with what they were doing in taking clipboards and walking around campus to record the color of students’ skin,” one Hillsdale alum told MLive.

A statement from the college reaffirmed the school’s commitment against discrimination based on “nationality, color or sex.” Founded in 1844, Hillsdale was the first college in America whose charter prohibited discrimination.

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