Emerson College is one of many campuses across America that has had the courage to allow an independent panel to evaluate its tenure and promotion practices. The panel found that after it "just happened to be the case" that every single black person to apply for tenure was somehow unqualified for the job, it was actually the university's hiring and promotion practices that produced racial discrimination on a consistent and systemic basis.

"It is not intended, but it's the result of patterns that perpetuate forms of discrimination," according to Ted Landsmark, President of Boston Architectural College, who headed the panel.

The evaluation occurred after the tenure denial of Pierre Desir, a black scholar in the field of Communication arts. His denial occurred at the same time as Roger House, another black male professor at the college. The local NAACP got involved in their cases, and asked for an independent review of the practices at the college.

In 129 years, Emerson granted tenure to just three black scholars, with two of them having to sue in order to obtain the position. What is saddest is that this is a common theme around the country. One example would be the hiring practices of Elena Kagan, the recent nominee to the Supreme Court. Out of 29 tenured or tenure track hires at the Harvard Law School (where Kagan was dean), 28 of those hires under Kagan's watch happened to be white. Kagan is not alone in her racial bias, since most predominantly white universities accept equally egregious and unintelligent outcomes (except, of course, during basketball season).

One finding of the report on Emerson College, which serves as a microcosm of what happens all across America, is that most African American tenure track faculty are vulnerable because "their energy and sense of belonging are being taxed." The report also cites the "unintended bias" of non-black faculty, who end up concluding that black scholarship is not as valuable as the work produced by white scholars (one example is when Cornel West had the quality of his work questioned by an inferior scholar, Lawrence Summers, formerly the President of Harvard University). The cases are even more dramatic and racially-biased in the sciences and business schools, many of whom have never tenured or even hired an African American faculty member in over 100 years of existence. All the while, hundreds of white men are given the opportunity.

One of the other interesting findings of the Emerson report is that it revealed a "lack of understanding" of historical discrimination of minorities and how many faculty members inadvertently contribute to the perpetuation of these patterns. "It's not a matter of George Wallace standing at the door saying no entry," one panelist said. "But it's the same result."

Please allow me to break it down and make it simple. You see, academic institutions are like any other institution, physical or social, with constructs created from actions and choices of the past. Therefore, perceptions and outcomes of the present exist within the confines of structural limitations that were contrived and executed at some point in the institution's history. Many universities across America were founded on the premise of an undeniable, unquestionable, prolonged and deep commitment to racial inequality: Black people weren't hired and black students were refused admission. By virtue of the fact that many institutions are reluctant to change and that they also hold onto norms and traditions established long ago, administrators who continue to promote such practices become inadvertent accomplices to modern day inequality. Jim Crow is alive and well in academia, and many of our most highly-educated citizens are behaving like narrow-minded members of the Ku Klux Klan.

As a bachelors, masters and doctoral student, I never once had a single black professor in any of my classes. This made my educational experience uncomfortable, and unnecessarily dramatic. In spite of the fact that I studied as much as 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, I found myself involved in racialized political battles that threatened to keep me from ever earning my doctorate. During my time at The Ohio State University Business School, my entire academic career was nearly derailed by a rogue professor in an incident in which I simply stood up against the racism of one of her Stanford colleagues. It was the presence of a black scholar in another department (the only black faculty member ever tenured in the entire history of the business school at the time) that saved my career. That's the difference that a black faculty member can make – black students need mentors too.

Here is one solution to the silliness of academia that many have simply decided to accept: Hold universities accountable for their numbers. If a department has never tenured a single African American in more than 50 years, they should be subject to investigation and expected to answer for their racially-biased hiring practices. If they claim they can't find qualified minorities, then they should be assisted in their job search. If they claim that all minorities they've encountered are not good enough to be hired, then their hiring practices should be monitored and evaluated by an independent entity. At the end of the day, academic honesty must be upheld by asking institutions to answer the difficult questions and not simply avoid them.

Universities are among the most racist institutions in America. There are some who believe that certain forms of elitism preclude select citizens from the same standards of fairness that we must all profess to as Americans. Universities that are uncommitted to producing fairness and equity in their ranks should be unconditionally rejected by us all. Our children, who will lead the future, should not be learning from individuals and institutions that are so readily committed to maintaining the norms of the past.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.