Whoa, Is Winthrop

I enjoyed my time at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. I was a transfer student and finished my degree in 2 1/2 years. 1 semester shy of graduating on time. I wasn't a bad student, but I certainly didn't push myself as hard as I could have.

In the last 12 years the basketball program really took off. When I attended college there, if the school was .500, then it was a good year. We did, however, give everyone a run for their money in the Big South tournament in the early 1990's.

Then there was the Gregg Marshall era. He pushed his Division-1 leftovers to compete and compete hard. The school made the NCAA tournament 9 times under his reign, even defeating Notre Dame in the first round one year.

Then coach Randy Peele inherited Coach Gregg Marshall's recruited class after Marshall skipped town for Wichita State. Peele had a good first year making the NCAA tournament for the 10th time in school history. This year is a different story. The men's basketball team has started the year 1-7, with their only win coming over D-II opponent North Greenville. It's like Mr. Peabody and I jumped back into our Wayback Machine and sped through the time continuum back to 1991. Hopefully the basketball program can get back on track.

Aesthetically, Winthrop is an interesting college. Most of the buildings were constructed during an era when form was just as important as function, unlike the squared structures wrapped in glass and cement of the current era. All the buildings were brick and stately in manner, very similar to the Georgian style of building.

The school was a girls school up until the late 1970's. It's primary purpose was a state teachers' college, much like Towson State University was until they started pretending that they were something else.

By the time I arrived in 1992, the school had become Winthrop University, but was still 5-1 girls, not that I had a problem with that! The school was also very diverse. I don't have a problem with that either. South Carolina, if I am not mistaken, has the largest concentration of blacks in the United States, about 30%. And Winthrop reflected this demographic - as it should.

The other day I got an email from the alumni association informing me of all of the upcoming events. There's homecoming, Thanksgiving, fall graduation, and finally the Black Alumni Council Reunion. White man say what? That's right. A black alumni reunion.

Now, I understand that South Carolina is still a bit peeved by the outcome of the Civil War, a war they choose to call the War of Northern Aggression. And I'd be a fool to say that there were no tensions between the whites and the blacks while I was there. It was not uncommon to see a bumper sticker that read, "If I knew it would turn out like this I would have picked my own cotton." That mentality has just become part of the culture in the South.

However, I do recall a court case led by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (a Maryland man) called Brown v. Board of Education that struck down a former ruling named Plessy v. Fergeson, which allowed for separate by equal. Marshall argued that despite the law, accommodations for blacks were not equal. The Supreme Court agreed and determined that separate by equal was therefore illegal.

Furthermore, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, thus ending most legal restrictions based on race, except for some anti-misogyny laws that were finally struck down in 1967 with Loving v. Virginia.

So back to Winthrop - what in the world makes them think it's okay to have a black reunion? Am I invited? If not, I think they would have some serious problems. Is there a white reunion? I think not. But if there was one, would it be equal to the black reunion? Did Winthrop not get the memos about those aforementioned laws? How can they even endorse such an idea?

I had so much hope for my alma mater. But I'm afraid it appears that the gravity of political correctness has forced the college back to the dark days of the early 1950's. They should be ashamed of themselves.