The article, titled, “It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges,” has drawn a range of responses — including assertions that Hill is “pro-segregation” or even “racist.”
In the article, which appears in The Atlantic’s October issue, Hill argues that black athletes help attract money and attention to “predominately white universities that showcase them,” while Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) continue to struggle.
She writes that mostly white schools’ multibillion-dollar revenues have been built on the “exertions of (uncompensated) black athletes,” claiming that an elite black athlete attending an HBCU raises awareness of the institution, whose endowments combined are less than a tenth of Harvard’s.
Very proud that my first magazine piece for @TheAtlantic is appearing in the October issue. Been working on it for some time. Here it is —> Why Black Athletes Need to Leave White Colleges https://t.co/orCDWF8UkT
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 5, 2019
She writes that HBCUs have graduated a significant number of black professionals, a thriving HBCU lifts up the community around it and finally, that some black students “feel safer, both physically and emotionally,” at an HBCU – “all the more so as racial tensions have risen in recent years.” – READ MORE