Affirmative Action at University of Illinois: The 1968 Special Educational Opportunities Program

Affirmative Action at University of Illinois: The 1968 Special Educational Opportunities Program

Teacher Education, University of Illinois, SEOP

First Paragraph: In the spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Higher Education Act of 1965, the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) initiated the Special Educational Opportunities Program (SEOP), a program to recruit
more African American students to the UIUC campus. The SEOP will be the focus of this piece. The objectives are
twofold. First, I will discuss the implementation and nature of SEOP including recruitment, admission requirements,
initial academic achievement, and graduation rates. Next, I will illustrate the impact this first substantial number of
Black students left on the UIUC campus both socially and academically. The first group of SEOP students will be the
focus though later students will be discussed tangentially.

Joy Ann Williamson

Volume 25, Number 1

Midwest History of Education Journal

1998

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