Introduction:
In 1954, educational institutions took a drastic shift due to the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Schools began integrating and took steps towards what they deemed as steps towards equality. Texas Christian University was a little late to the trend, deciding to integrate in 1964, nearly a decade after the court case. To this day, TCU has maintained this attitude of slow steps towards racial justice by doing the bare minimum to provide for students of color on our campus. Going further, many women of color often feel the negative effects of institutionalized discrimination due to their intersecting identities. As part of the Women of Color Feminisms course, I was given the task to research women of color in the TCU archives to bring light onto the experiences of a woman of color in the past at this university. After spending hours digging into old yearbooks, student newspapers, and other archival materials, I decided to focus my research on Pat Kane, a Black woman that served as the Intercultural Affairs Advisor at TCU.
Context: The Search
Although the archives are a great resource to view TCU’s past, it is extremely difficult to find exactly what you are looking for. I wanted to find a woman of color in administration that did a lot of work for the well-being of students of color on campus, but there was no easy way to just plug this into a search bar. I decided to start by looking up the word “minority,” and was pleased to find that Pat Kane’s name came up multiple times throughout the first few searches. I was initially interested in Kane because it was evident that she dedicated much of her work to students of color.
Despite the volume of the mention of her name, it proved to be more difficult to find a picture of her. I looked up “Pat Kane” and went through every source that had her name in it. This included many Skiff articles and a few yearbooks. I was finally able to find a picture of her and confirm that she was a woman of color advocating for the rights of students of color. She was a perfect example of a trailblazer in administration during times of heightened racial tensions in America. Most of the information I found about her was concentrated in the years 1978 and 1979, although there were a few outliers here and there. However, it is important to note that the moments that Kane was most involved and covered in the archival materials was about 15 years ago integration. It took TCU this long to really start gearing organizations and programs towards students of color and their concerns.
Content: Who Exactly Is Pat Kane?
Pat Kane did a lot for TCU students of color at her time at TCU. She mainly served as the Intercultural Affairs Advisor, in which her main responsibilities were outlined in the Black Student Guide to all incoming Black students; her goals are to “work with the administration and minority students to help facilitate positive cultural awareness among all students on campus.” In addition to this, she the advisor to multiple organizations and programs: “Opening New Worlds,” Unity, The Looking Glass, Black Student Caucus, and the Black Sororities and Fraternities are just a few examples of the way she dedicated time to students of color on campus. These, of course, are the formal ways that she was getting involved with racial justice at TCU, but she opened up her office to any students that wanted to talk through being a student of color at TCU in the late 70s and early 80s, or just any student that wanted to get involved in justice on campus.
Kane would often be described as the individual who was creating connections among students of different backgrounds on TCU’s campus. Despite the fact that her job description revolves around enhancing cultural awareness at TCU, she went above and beyond to ensure that she was connecting to students of color, because it was inevitable that they would struggle in such a time of racial tension. It is undeniable that Pat Kane did a lot for students of color at Texas Christian University, so she deserves to be known.
Connection: Pat Kane and Women of Color Feminisms
Something that I immediately noticed was just how much Pat Kane was doing. Some of this was most likely by choice and because she could relate to the student population that she was aiming most of her efforts towards, but another part of this was probably because she was the only person that could effectively do the work. In one of the two student publications, similar to yearbooks, that I was able to find her in, she was pictured standing alongside her colleagues, in which the office is described as “diverse” although she is the only person of color in the picture. She was known as the single example of diversity in TCU’s administration at this time.
The work that Kane was doing, as a woman of color, for students of color, was exhausting. She had her hand in almost every part of Black student life on campus, and most likely because she was a person of color in the administration. In class, we read “The Feminist Statement” by the Combahee River Collective, that outlined the danger of identity politics. After looking through the archives, it became evident that Pat Kane’s work was focused specifically on those who were considered minority students at TCU. They were all being connected by this one singular identity – being of color. This resembles the idea of identity politics and how progressive social politics are typically aimed at individuals with a single shared identity. Something I noticed was that there was barely anything about being a woman or anything specifically for women of color, besides sororities (which were not talked about much in relevance to Pat Kane). This being said, Pat Kane probably had most of her focus on the general blanket statement of “minority students,” causing her to pay more attention to racial differences than anything else. Although not necessarily bad, it shows how women are forced to pick between different parts of their life and prioritizing one over the other. The author, bell hooks, describes this internal struggle as a “double bind” where women of color are often stuck between two identity groups that only share one of their major identities because supporting one might directly contract the other.
It seems like the responsibility of TCU to be culturally aware and their ability to equitably integrate students of color onto campus was put entirely on Kane’s back. She became known as the singular person that was doing this work at this time. As we know now, this work cannot be done by one person. It needs to be an effort of multiple people of varying identities coming together to fight for the justice of all. I want to recognize the incredible work that Pat Kane did for the university, and I also want to recognize how the work that she did goes unnoticed.
Reflection: The Relevance Today
I had never heard of Pat Kane before starting this research. However, when I started to look at all these archival materials, I saw just how similar the work that Pat Kane did back in the late 70s resembles the current work that TCU is trying to do. Students of color speaking up for their rights and racial justice on campus has been happening ever since integration started. Of course, there are parts that vary, but honestly, I was shocked at how relevant most of the information that I was reading is to today.
In one of Kane’s organizations, Unity, aimed at serving as a liaison between minority students and the university, there was mention how the overall goal was to “represent and unite minority students” and get students of color to use their voice to challenge administration, in order to make TCU better. This still happens today. When reflecting on the List of Thirteen Demands and motives to get a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion component in the Core Curriculum, students are still standing up for racial justice on campus. I would argue that most of that support is sourced out to a small group of professional staff and faculty, just like how Pat Kane was probably the only resource for students of color during that time.
When I tried to Google Pat Kane today, I literally could not find one single thing about her in the present. It is disheartening that someone who did do a lot for students of color is not mentioned in any current TCU rhetoric. We are in a moment of celebrating DEI initiatives on our campus, but we have not even recognized someone that worked to charter so many changes on campus. Even back when she was here, she was only featured a few times in the yearbook and a few times in the Skiff, which is the student-organized newspaper. Was she supported by her fellow administrators? By her supervisor? By the white students on campus? Her work has gone unknown, and I want to bring light to it.
It is important to know the past of TCU and celebrate the past stakeholders in social justice. In order to progress towards justice for all identity groups, and especially women of color on campus, we need to be aware of past efforts. We also need to give credit where it is due, and Pat Kane is someone that deserves credit for all of the incredible work that she has done for TCU students of color. Let’s move forward, with intersectionality in mind, and follow the influence of someone as incredible as Pat Kane.
Links to all Skiff articles that I used, mentioning Pat Kane: