As I read through “Mrs. Obama Goes to Washington” (cover story, March 18), I remembered my experience during the same time period on the Princeton campus. I had come from fully integrated schools, the first student from my high school in 10 years to attend any Ivy League school and very much in need of the work-study jobs I held. One of these many jobs was in the Third World Center, working for campus security to help keep the building safe. I looked forward to the new friends I might meet as I sat at the desk in the entryway, but as Mrs. Obama said of her own experience as a black student in a majority-white environment, it was “a very isolating experience – period.” I would smile at people as they entered, but was utterly and completely ignored by all who came and went, as if I were an alien white-intruder who did not belong.

I contrast that experience with the one I had in the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship, where I made many dear friends of many colors. I have to work to remember which color skin each one had. There were no distinctions among people based on skin color there, but there certainly were at the Third World Center. The quote from Mrs. Obama’s thesis was based on feelings and perception: “I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus, as if I really didn’t belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second [italics added for emphasis)].” When people choose to isolate themselves based on color distinctions, won’t that always be the feeling? What would people think if there had been a “First World Center,” open to those of the proper skin color?

Obama also is quoted in the article as saying that she faced limited opportunities for minorities at Princeton, and so “we created a community within a community and got involved at places like the Third World Center.” I find that incredible. In what way were there limited opportunities for minorities at Princeton? A vociferous hue and cry would have gone up from every quarter had any instances of that ever been alleged. The mood of the campus was to see and hear regular pleas for divestment in South Africa because of apartheid.

The article also quoted Sharon Holland ’86, a professor at Duke University, as saying that those times at Princeton “were beginnings of a lot of resentment about affirmative action.” But what is affirmative action? Is it not a program to admit students based on their color rather than on their merits? How is this not racist? Why would there not be resentment toward a group given favor based on skin color?

My daughter recently received an e-mail about a “Why Princeton” recruiting seminar. Here is a quote from it: “The program, which students of color may find particularly interesting and helpful, features a diverse panel of speakers ...” Why would students of color find a program particularly interesting? Will they be discussing skin color? Why would not any eager student find a diverse panel interesting? My point is that if programs and self-segregating centers and admissions are going to be based on color of skin, an incredibly arbitrary distinction, how can anyone be surprised at resentment among those not selected as special, and at feelings of alienation among those who choose self-segregation?

My friends of color at Princeton never expressed any such feelings, except that when they placed themselves in multi-skin-color environments, they were called “Oreo” by other people of color.

As a white mother of five white, one Asian, and six black children, I know that skin color distinctions are entirely unhelpful. If Mrs. Obama truly wants to help D.C.’s struggling schools as she did the Lab school in Chicago, she should urge her husband to restore the very successful school voucher program that he canceled, allowing poor students equal access without taking charity to schools attended by her daughters.

Let’s have some clear reporting and thinking about race at Princeton and in the United States.

(Editor’s note: A condensed version of this letter was published in the June 10, 2009, issue of PAW.)

Elizabeth Stevenson Green ’84
Winchester, Va.