Analyzing Discrimination at Tech and UGA

The schools of Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia are not the only things that have changed over the years; their students have as well. Both Georgia universities have now opened their doors to a diverse student body. Therefore, it can be said that, in fact, both school’s definition of the “student” has changed and has become more vague, or in another words less limited. After analyzing the histories of both schools, it can be said that their ever-changing definition of a “student” has kept pace with the changing definition of the “person” in society.

        

As previously stated above, Georgia Tech and University of Georgia both started to accept women around the peak of the Women’s Rights Movement. Both schools allowed women to attend some sort of classes before the passing of the 19^th amendment, which permitted women to vote. The passing of this amendment shows that women are a vital part of society and now have a voice.  Now let’s go further, UGA allowed women to become full-time undergraduates in 1918, which is about 35 years before Tech accepted women to attend classes. Why is this?  It may be because that the University of Georgia is a liberal arts school while Georgia Tech is a technical and scientific university especially when compared to the University of Georgia. This being said, women, especially in the first half of the 20^th, century are seen to lack the interest for scientific, technology based careers rather than just being discriminated from attending. This is where the infamous ratio, which is the ratio between men and women who attend Georgia Tech, comes into play. Georgia Tech is known for its highly unbalanced ratio; even with greater initiative in getting more women involved the ratio is currently still unbalanced (65% male, 35% female). Then when you compare Georgia Tech’s ratio to UGA’s more balanced ratio, it is easy to see that Tech has a harder time holding the interests of women because it is a technical school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLAvhE4a_hI

A comedic view on 'The Ratio" at Tech

Dealing with racial discrimination was a totally different and more complicated matter. Again, both schools desegregated around the time of the Civil Rights Movement which correlates with how society, as a whole, dealt with the situation. Like I said before, Georgia Tech and UGA are both located in the Deep South therefore there was tension when dealing with this issue of integrating the student body. Georgia Tech, being in the heart of the Atlanta, can be said to be less conservative than that of the University of Georgia, which is located in the more rural town of Athens. Being more conservative, especially when dealing with racial issues, may be the reason why the University of Georgia had such a hard time integrating. The general belief of the area may be why there were riots and protests which led to the suspension of the first African-American students attending the Athens-based university. And even to this day, UGA is having trouble with the lack of African-Americans attending their school. Unlike UGA, Georgia Tech had a peaceful integration of African-American students in their classrooms which started the integration of the other aspects of the university. The integration that occurred 50 years ago has led Tech to currently be ranked 2^nd in the country for awarding African-American students a bachelors degree in engineering.

African-American fail to register which headlines The Red and Black, UGA's school paper

Researching discrimination that occurred at Tech and how it compares with what occurred at our rival school, UGA, shows me that even though we are suppose to be opponents we have a similar history. Both Tech and UGA have gone through intense obstacles to become the schools they are now. Even though, the two schools may have dealt with the situation differently we can learn from each others mistakes and pasts and press on for a bright diverse future.