This volume examined topics explored in the 1995 John Singleton film Higher Learning, and examined the film’s relevance to understanding life on a college campus in twenty-first-century America, with specific intent to highlight the persistence and evolution of on-campus and off-campus battles over race, gender, culture, free speech, civil rights, and socioeconomic mobility. Contributors situated Higher Learning (1995) as a prophetic warning about the events leading up to and dispositions associated with the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right March and Rally” [hereafter 2017 Charlottesville March] and the rise of expressed anti-Blackness, authoritarianism, and distrust in American institutions of higher education (IHEs)—all of which were enlivened by the presidential campaigns and the elections of Donald Trump. To do so, contributors have viewed Higher Learning through both a retrospective lens and a prospective lens to excavate additional insights into various controversies that came to dominate news cycles in the early twenty-first century. Each chapter highlighted specific scenes that explored how Singleton’s film portrayed certain topics and then connected those scenes to various moments in American history. In doing so, the contributors to this volume documented how the film forewarned the appearance and reappearance of multiple occurrences; for example, the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter movement; protests over public statues commemorating Confederate soldiers and sympathizers; protests over actions celebrating Black freedom fighters; debates about the academic preparedness of students hailing from under-resourced communities; the relationship between social belonging and student learning outcomes; the renewed saliency of white supremacist organizations; student calls to end the carceral state and to eliminate the racially disproportionate rates of police-citizen contact; efforts by politicians to weaken shared governance at public universities; and campaigns to reshape K-16 curricula by characterizing certain teaching topics and scholarship as anti-American and corruptive to susceptible minds (e.g., Critical Race Theory; gender and sexuality studies; U.S. enslavement; climate change; social stratification). Moreover, the volume argued the 2017 Charlottesville March was not a distinct manifestation of White anger or an unimaginable event in post-Great Society America, but rather an event foreshadowed by Higher Learning. In that regard, the volume aimed to show readers why the 2017 Charlottesville March was tragically familiar and predictable to observant Americans in the Age of Trump. Finally, this volume provided clarity about why the country’s college campuses are sites of passionate epistemological conflicts, especially over the making and meaning of equity and inclusion in America.

Conclusion: A Way to Unlearn

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发表日期：

2026年

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Tyson D. King-Meadows

摘要

This volume examined topics explored in the 1995 John Singleton film Higher Learning, and examined the film’s relevance to understanding life on a college campus in twenty-first-century America, with specific intent to highlight the persistence and evolution of on-campus and off-campus battles over race, gender, culture, free speech, civil rights, and socioeconomic mobility. Contributors situated Higher Learning (1995) as a prophetic warning about the events leading up to and dispositions associated with the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right March and Rally” [hereafter 2017 Charlottesville March] and the rise of expressed anti-Blackness, authoritarianism, and distrust in American institutions of higher education (IHEs)—all of which were enlivened by the presidential campaigns and the elections of Donald Trump. To do so, contributors have viewed Higher Learning through both a retrospective lens and a prospective lens to excavate additional insights into various controversies that came to dominate news cycles in the early twenty-first century. Each chapter highlighted specific scenes that explored how Singleton’s film portrayed certain topics and then connected those scenes to various moments in American history. In doing so, the contributors to this volume documented how the film forewarned the appearance and reappearance of multiple occurrences; for example, the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter movement; protests over public statues commemorating Confederate soldiers and sympathizers; protests over actions celebrating Black freedom fighters; debates about the academic preparedness of students hailing from under-resourced communities; the relationship between social belonging and student learning outcomes; the renewed saliency of white supremacist organizations; student calls to end the carceral state and to eliminate the racially disproportionate rates of police-citizen contact; efforts by politicians to weaken shared governance at public universities; and campaigns to reshape K-16 curricula by characterizing certain teaching topics and scholarship as anti-American and corruptive to susceptible minds (e.g., Critical Race Theory; gender and sexuality studies; U.S. enslavement; climate change; social stratification). Moreover, the volume argued the 2017 Charlottesville March was not a distinct manifestation of White anger or an unimaginable event in post-Great Society America, but rather an event foreshadowed by Higher Learning. In that regard, the volume aimed to show readers why the 2017 Charlottesville March was tragically familiar and predictable to observant Americans in the Age of Trump. Finally, this volume provided clarity about why the country’s college campuses are sites of passionate epistemological conflicts, especially over the making and meaning of equity and inclusion in America.